


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

ChapTPZh Copyright No._ 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






















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“ Huh ! Who is you? ” 














A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 



A FAILURE THAT WAS A VICTORY 


BY 

ANNA F. BURNHAM 
author of “ fussbudget’s fours,” etc. 



BOSTON 

£be pilgrim press 

CHICAGO ©UlMWMttWlO 




SECOND COPY, 


°\° 


51330 

c °py '«*• w 

By Anna jf. BuhnuajiS^ 




CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE WALKER PRIZE. 5 

II. DIGGING FOR REASONS. 1 8 

III. ELECTIVES. 31 

IV. POLLY. 46 

V. NOT ACCORDING TO PROGRAM . 60 

VI. THE REGULAR COURSE. 77 

VII. OWING TO THE OUTLOOK COMMITTEE . 94 

VIII. “unto one of these least” . 109 

IX. JACKYS WHEEL. I 23 

X. AN INTERVIEW. 1 38 

XI. SMALL BEGINNINGS. I 52 

XII. TANNER STREET. 164 

XIII. A RAIN THAT POURED. 177 

XIV. ONE OF MOTHER’S IDEAS. I 89 

XV. AUNT EASTERS TURN. 205 

XVI. GOING SHARES. 219 

XVII. PHIL AND OTHER FOLKS. 233 

XVIII. TOM. 249 

xix. polly’s party . 258 

XX. MORE ABOUT THE PARTY. 268 

XXL ON THE KELLOGG .. 281 
































A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


CHAPTER I 

THE WALKER PRIZE 

“ Though losses and crosses be lessons right severe, 
There’s wit there ye’ll get there, ye’ll find no otherwhere. 

— Burns. 

A LITTLE rustle and bustle at a side stage 
** entrance set everybody’s heart a-tiptoe, 
and started a sudden, eager buzzing away 
down the aisles and up in the galleries. 

“ There he is ! ” 

“ That ’s Steve ! ” 

“Look at Jack ! Do n’t he step out like 
a little man ?” 

“ Mamma, there’s our Tom ! ” whispered 
an adoring little maiden of nine years in 

butterfly skirts and pink silk stockings. 

5 



6 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“Tell ye, Brennan looks fine ! ” commented 
a knot of last-year boys, half rising in their 
seats with curious, friendly interest. “ Hope 
he 11 get it.” 

Half way down one of the side aisles a 
little fellow stood up on the seat, the better 
to see a big fellow who brought up the rear 
at that moment. The “ prize boys ” were 
filing onto the stage, and, as usual, each 
one at the moment was somebody’s bright 
particular star, and all the rest nonentities. 
There might have been taller boys, hand¬ 
somer boys, better boys in the world than 
Bert Whitcomb, but you would have found 
it hard work to make loyal little Phil believe 
it. Pride nearly burst his jacket buttons as 
he stood up there on the seat and took Bert 
in from his shiny boots to his brand-new 
necktie. 

“ Down, Phil, down ! ” said his father in a 
stern whisper ; but Phil was deaf as a post 
or Banquo’s ghost, and would n’t “ down ” an 
inch. Two ladies with fashionable sleeves 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 7 

occupied the intervening space between 
father and son, so that coercion was impos¬ 
sible. Weak-wristed tugs at the small plaid 
kilts were of no avail, and his mother finally 
resigned herself to being made conspicuous, 
uncharitably hoping that the public would 
suppose that he belonged to one of the two 
large-sleeved ladies aforesaid, and thus 
avenge her for being crowded out of her 
rightful place beside her husband. 

“ It’s Bert, all safe ! ” he announced in an 
audible tone of relief, at last, turning around 
and nodding to his father, as if up to this 
moment Bert’s identity had hung in the 
balance. “ I know him by that little lock o’ 
—oh, say, Bert, hem ! hem-m ! ” 

This last, coughing and all, was in a kind 
of subdued whisper, but adjoining sections 
were convulsed by the pantomimes accom¬ 
panying it. Rapid motions of his finger¬ 
tips, first to his lips and then to the crown 
of his head, sought to convey to Bert the 
information that his refractory Indian “ war 


8 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


lock,” which had a constitutional tendency 
to bristle, would be the better for a little 
patting and smoothing. Fortunately Bert 
saw nothing of it, had not even seen him 
yet, but from force of habit his hand went 
up about this time, and Phil subsided. 

“ It’s all right!” he announced cheer¬ 
fully in a stage whisper. “He saw me and 
fixed it, and I winked back at him.” 

Something in the expression of his 
father’s face at this moment brought the 
young man to a sitting posture, and the 
neighbors heard less of him for the remain¬ 
der of that evening. 

It was a good-sized hall and well filled. 
Fifteen hundred persons might perhaps 
have been accommodated with seats, and 
very nearly that number was assembled. 
The Walker Prize Speaking was always well 
attended. Eight boys only were chosen 
annually to compete for this honor, but 
their friends and the friends of those who 
had been contestants in previous years, and 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 9 

the boys who expected or hoped to “ try ” 
later, with their friends, usually filled the 
house to overflowing. 

Bert’s father had trained ?iim. The boy 
had come naturally by his fine, thrilling 
voice and manly grace of bearing. For the 
rest, if he lacked as yet a certain rare and 
delicate perception of just emphasis and ex¬ 
pressive inflection, he was at least imitative, 
and he had been faithfully drilled. 

“ Do n’t try to see ‘ the whites of their 
eyes,’ my son,” his father told him playfully. 
“ Look your audience squarely in the face, 
but in a general way. Do n’t stare, nor roll 
your eyes, nor look fiercely at any one 
person.” 

“ Thought I ’d got to ‘ fix ’em with my 
glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner,” 
said Bert laughing. 

“They ’ll ‘fix’ you, more likely, if you 
do,” replied his father. “ Daniel Webster 
might try that with an obstinate juryman ; 
they say he did. But you are n’t Daniel yet. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


Remember what I say. Do n’t single out 
your mother nor me nor the judges. Have 
respect to your whole audience.” 

And now th^ fateful evening had come. 
The great hall was splendid with gaslight, 
gay with summer evening toilets, stifling 
with perfume. Banks of flowers, baskets, 
vases, rare potted plants from the florists, 
backed by tall palms and ferns, half hid the 
platform, and for the moment drew all eyes, 
as if aware that for the moment eyes had 
nothing better to attend to. 

A thousand fans seemed fluttering as he 
stepped upon the stage that breathless June 
night, and looked in the face of the (to him) 
vast and appalling audience. As Bert is the 
only one of the eight whose fortunes we are 
concerned to follow particularly we must let 
them pass, shadow-like, and await Bert’s 
turn. It came the very last one ; not a very 
good place, his father thought forebodingly. 
“ Hope he ’ll remember to keep his eyes off 
of individuals ! ” he muttered to himself, 


A BUNKER niLL FAILURE tl 

biting at his mustache nervously. “ Takes 
a cool head to do that.” 

Bert remembered, but he could not do it. 
The more he tried to look at everybody in a 
general way, the more particular did his 
gaze become. In a very especial way he was 
soon aware of his mother sitting there, lean¬ 
ing a little forward, flushed and breathless. 
His gaze also “ lighted,” panic-stricken, on 
the quiet, closely observant face two seats 
further on. Bert always knew how to 
translate his father’s quietness. He saw 
Phil, of course, but never minded him. 
He saw his judges, all three of them, cool, 
passionless, critical. He saw a girl smile 
up in the gallery. He saw a myriad of fans 
waving. 

That brought him to himself again. He 
“ gritted ” his teeth, drew a deep breath, 
and set his feet firmly on the carpeted 
stage, which, in spite of himself, had seemed 
to have a heaving, undulating motion ! 

“ I’ll make them drop those fans ! ” he 


12 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


thought to himself savagely, and launched 
into his opening sentence. 

“ ‘ The inhabitants of the bleak and in¬ 
hospitable regions of the Alps desire, 
mighty sir, to live in peace with all their 
neighbors ! ’ ” 

The piece chosen was the speech of the 
Swiss Landamman, Arnold Biederman, in 
“Anne of Geierstein.” At once bold and 
pathetic, it seemed from the outset to be¬ 
speak the admiration and sympathy of the 
audience. There was a little rustle of 
pleased surprise, then an attentive turning 
to the speaker ; and soon a sort of listen¬ 
ing hush that lost no syllable or accent. 
The fans did stop ! Bert noticed it, and it 
was a small victory that gave him assurance. 
Now the piece possessed him. He was the 
noble Switzer, stung with the haughty 
duke’s disdain. He felt the genuineness of 
his defiance, the pathos of his pleading. 

Suddenly—he never could tell how—all 
was nothingness ! His mind became a 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 13 

blank ! His memory was like a slate when 
the sponge has passed over it. He had 
“ forgotten his piece ! ” All in the world he 
could think of to say, as he confessed after¬ 
ward, was a verse he had read that morning 
in his little “ Daily Food,” which his mother 
had a way of placing ostentatiously on top 
of the Swiss Landamman or whatever else 
was for the moment engaging his attention : 
“Yea, though I walkthrough the valley of 
the shadow of death.” He was terribly 
tempted to put it in. 

A few horrible seconds he stood thus ; 
then all returned to him as suddenly as it 
had gone. The audience was not even 
aware that he had been so near a break¬ 
down. The just perceptible hesitation they 
took for a “ rhetorical pause,” especially as 
he covered it so adroitly by a step forward 
and a change of position. If only he could 
have begun where he left off ! Alas ! the 
utmost that he could do was to seize upon 
the first sentence which presented itself to 


14 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


his drowning clutch, and that happened to 
be in the latter half of the piece. There 
was no going back to mend matters. A 
kind of cold despair “ curdled his young 
blood,” as he said afterward, at the sight of 
his father settling back disappointedly, as 
if knowing beforehand the verdict of the 
judges ; at his mother’s troubled glances, evi¬ 
dently half-suspecting that something was 
wrong, and yet not sure, so grandly did he 
carry it through to the end ; at the curiously 
working physiognomy of his brother Phil, in 
plaid kilts and many-buttoned jacket, who 
sat with clinched fists as if to spring at the 
throats of the judges, and with eyes that 
winked furiously, but not enough to keep 
the tears back. Bert took it all in. “ The 
poor folkses ! ” he thought, and he threw his 
whole soul in the closing sentence. 

The heartiest applause of the evening 
broke forth as he bowed gracefully and 
retired, and it continued even after he had 
come back the second time to take the flow- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE IS 

ers handed him by the ushers. Then the 
orchestra began playing, and the three 
solemn judges went into secret session, 
and there was buzzing and whispering and 
fanning, intolerable to more than Bert, who 
sat in torture. At last a lull in the music, 
and the baldheaded chairman stood before 
the audience, hemming ominously, and 
fumbling with his watch chain. 

“The position of the judges,” he began, “is 
to-night a peculiarly difficult and trying one. 
There can be no doubt in the mind of any 
one who listened to the last speaker on our 
evening’s program as to the one whose tal¬ 
ents and training should have won for him 
the highest honors. The unfortunate omis¬ 
sion he made seemed almost atoned for by the 
cleverness and coolness of recovery. The 
committee was not at first entirely agreed 
as to the justice of allowing a mere techni¬ 
cality to deprive him of the otherwise well- 
earned prize. The speaking of Mr. Bertram 
Whitcomb was so uniformly excellent, the 


x 6 a bunker hill failure 

elocution so unexceptionable, that it is with 
deep regret,” etc. 

“ Beastly ! ” whispered some one at his el¬ 
bow. It was the boy who carried off tlje 
prize a moment later, and Bert tried not to 
let his answering smile be too melancholy. 

“ Your mother will 'be glad ! ” he said, 
laughing. “ No matter about introducing 
her! Pick her out by the look in her 
eyes ! ” 

Of course there was clapping at the tri¬ 
umphs of the others. Bert was glad of it, as 
it turned people’s eyes away from him. He 
saw Phil wipe away a surreptitious tear, be¬ 
ing restrained from more vigorous demon¬ 
strations ; and warm hand-clasps this side 
and that assured him that the sympathetic 
chairman had spoken the “ sense of the 
meeting,” but undercover of the music and 
the hand-shaking and congratulation of the 
more lucky fellows, Bert got out into the 
street and the night, and sped home alone 
without waiting for anybody. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE ^ 

Aunt Easter was up waiting for him. 
She was one of Job’s comforters. Bert 
would not lie, and he could not answer her 
questions just then, so he dropped all his 
flowers into her astonished lap by way of 
evasion. It was a happy thought, and suc¬ 
ceeded for the time being, though retribu¬ 
tion came later. She was pleased with the 
attention, and greeted the rest of the family 
with joyful paeans of “ I-told-you-sos,” 
which in their crestfallen mood rather as¬ 
tonished them, and made Phil more belli¬ 
gerent than ever. Of course all had to be 
explained, and then she had a good mind to 
go and pull the poor boy out of bed to re¬ 
proach him with being a gay deceiver—“ a- 
comin’ in that way, a-throwin’ his bokays in 
folkses laps to make ’em think he had got all 

the prizes and deserved ’em ! ” 

2 


CHAPTER II 


DIGGING FOR REASONS 
“ Failures are but the pillars of success.” 

■\AfANT me ? ” 

* * It was Phil on the foot of the bed 
before Bert had got out of it the next 
morning. 

“ Old Uncle Phil ? Yes, tumble in.” 

“ I ’m mad enough to kill somebody! ” 
said Phil, cuddling his curly head in the 
better half of Bert’s pillow, and tickling his 
ears with his breath while he talked into 
them. 

“Who?” said Bert sleepily. 

“All three of them ! ” said Phil blood¬ 
thirstily. “Good enough for ’em with their 
old bald heads and their watch chains ! I 
hate watch chains ! ” 

18 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE l() 

“ Come, young fellow,” said Bert, rousing 
himself, “ whose bed did you get out the 
wrong side of this morning? You seem to 
be upset in your mind. And what is it all 
about anyway?” 

‘‘You never got the prize and you’d 
oughter ! ” cried Phil reproachfully. 

“ True for you ! ” responded Bert cheer¬ 
fully. He was in a more philosophic mood 
this morning, and did not mean to die of 
heartbreak if he was disappointed. “ Puzzle 
the sphinx to know how it happened, too. 
I know that piece, sir, as well as the way to 
the postofhce. And why in creation ”— 

“ Why did n’t cher say it, then ? ” de¬ 
manded Phil suspiciously. “Well, ’t was 
the old baldheader’s fault, then, and I knew 
it was ! Why do n’t you go out and fight 
’em ? Say, Bert, why do n’t cher ?” 

“ The inhabitants of the bleak and inhos¬ 
pitable region of this cockloft desire, mighty 
sir, to live in peace with all their neigh¬ 
bors ! ” shouted Bert, getting into his 


20 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


clothes in an inconsiderate fashion that 
caused him to knock the top of his head on 
the rafters and graze the skin of his elbow 
against an outlying splinter of the little 
square window frame. The Whitcombs’ 
house was small and their hearts hospitable, 
so Bert added to the number of guest 
chambers by “ roosting,” as he called it, in 
the cockloft.” It was not a bad place in 
winter, receiving the upward-streaming heat 
of the whole house, and in summer the long 
wide chamber, having nothing else in it, had 
plenty of room for all the breezes stirring. 
Nobody disturbed him there except Phil, 
and he could be pitched down the ladder 
when he got too “ fresh,” as Bert termed it. 
This extreme penalty had to be at the mo¬ 
ment administered, for in the act of hang¬ 
ing by his heels from a little crossbar near 
the roof, the young man disengaged the 
loop of the stout cord that supported Bert’s 
coats and trousers in lieu of a wardrobe. 
It was in vain for him to protest that he 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


21 


“ did n’t go to do it.” Down he went, 
appearing at the breakfast table in a much 
less sympathetic frame of mind than that in 
which he had aroused Bert from his morn¬ 
ing slumbers. 

Aunt Easter also had her “ bone ” to pick 
with Bert, and his father looked thought¬ 
fully at him as he entered. Bert fancied 
that they had been talking him over. 

“ I hear tell you did n’t get the prize yes- 
tiddy,” she began the moment they were 
helped to oatmeal. 

“Aunt Easter” (as she pronounced her 
own name) was only an aunt “ by marriage.” 
This did not hinder her from claiming all the 
rights and privileges of her position, while 
she had none of the sympathy that one 
might expect from a blood relation. Her 
comments on family happenings were “ cal¬ 
culated to do good,” as they used to say of 
old-fashioned sermons ; at least they might 
have fostered the growth of patience and 
some of the other Christian graces. 


22 


A BUNKER BILL FAILURE 


“ Why, no,” confessed Bert, wondering 
how to take her. “ Thought I ’d let some 
of the other fellows have a chance this 
time.” 

“ You jest as good as told me a right-up- 
an’-down ”— 

“ Now, aunt, that’s enough, that’s 
enough !” broke in father hastily. “ The 
boy paid you a very pretty compliment. 
There was no intent to deceive about it.” 

“ A-throwin’ them flowers into my lap to 
make me think you’d got it ! ” finished Aunt 
Easter wrathfully. “And what’s more, 
I’d like to find out why you didn’t get 
it ! ” 

“ So would I,” said Bert under his breath. 

“We won’t ruin our digestions by think¬ 
ing it over at table,” said father pleasantly ; 

“ but after breakfast, my boy, we ’ll have a 
little talk, if you like, and see if there were 
any reasons.” 

“He ’s an old crank, that’s why ! ” ob¬ 
served Phil with his mouth full of mush. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 23 

“ Kicked me downstairs and threw the 
feather-bed top of me ! ” 

“ Good, my son ! ” laughed his father, 
while the others shouted. “ Character is at 
the basis of all successful oratory. You go 
to the root of the matter. We will let you 
assist the investigating party when we dig 
for reasons.” 

Providence interposed in the shape of the 
postman. Phil handed the thin letter to his 
father, who sprang up hastily with a sorrow¬ 
ful exclamation. 

“ Brother David is dead ! ” he told the' 
troubled group briefly. “ Died at three 
Thursday morning.” 

Then he went up-stairs, and mother fol¬ 
lowed him. There were things to be seen 
to, and mother was always the great seer 
and foreseer of everything- When he came 
down he had his handbag packed and 
strapped, and a Newport time-table stuck 
out of his breast pocket. He had not been 
a practising physician for years without 


2 4 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

learning how to be ready to take the next 
train for anywhere in five minutes. 

“ Can I trust you to see to things, Bert ? ” 
he asked a trifle anxiously. “ I have just 
time to catch that next train if I do n’t 
stop for anything. But you must let Wright 
know I’m not coming, so he will be sure to 
be on hand. That house must be put 
through this warm weather or it won’t be 
dry and ready to go into before snow flies. 
The men must n’t be left without a good 
sharp eye on them all the time. Of course 
Wright understands his business of archi¬ 
tect, but there are a good many little things 
that I am particular about, as they will make 
all the difference of comfort for your mother 
and pleasure for all of us for years to come. 
Be sure to remember about that step up 
between the kitchen and dining-room. It 
must be lowered. Tell Wright I said so. 
I’m not going to have your mother wear¬ 
ing her life out over that extra step. No, 
I do n’t know how long I shall be gone. 


/i BUNKER HILL FAILURE 25 

Back in three days, if possible. And tell 
him”— 

Here followed a long series of minute 
directions to Wright, head foreman or head 
carpenter, which it is not necessary for us to 
note down, though Bert’s father would have 
done well to make him do so. He wound 
up with that anxious inquiry, already uttered 
in the beginning :— 

“ And now can I trust you ? Have you 
understood me ? Did you fix all I said in 
your mind, so that you won’t forget it ?” 

“ Why, of course, father ! ” said Bert al¬ 
most indignantly. “Of course you can 
trust me. Rattle ’em all off to you, if you 
want, so’s to see if I’ve got ’em ! ” 

“All right, if you know it,” responded his 
father. “You have a leaky memory, you 
know, that’s all. And I know the reason, if 
I had time to tell you.” 

Bert flushed, remembering last night, 
They had nearly reached the station and so 
had the incoming train his father was to go 


26 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

on, so the reason, locked in his father’s 
breast, took a long journey before he heard 
from it again. 

“ Thinks he knows the reason ! ” mused 
Bert, looking after the vanishing train with 
an odd pursing of his full red lips. “ Same 
old thing, I s’pose ! ‘ Lack of will power, 

principle, conscience about my work,’ and all 
the rest of it. Bah ! I know it all ! ” 

“ Hi, yi ! ” cried a gay voice, as its owner 
swung himself off the electric which at that 
moment passed near the little station where 
Bert was still standing. “ Chased you half 
over Chester! If you’d gone on that train, 
I’d have boarded her! Your mother said 
you’d go to the station, so I posted off 
’thout waiting for my baggage. 

“ Say, old man,” said his friend, coming to 
business, “ you do n’t get off this year ! 
We’re off on a tramp to the ’Ghanies, and 
you ’ll just make a good even seven of us! ” 
“ Have to leave it six, for an odd num¬ 
ber ! ” laughed Bert, letting the other link 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 27 

his arm in with his own, as they turned up 
the street to talk it over. It was a joyful 
project. What a heart-breaking pity it was 
this year to lose it! But they were going 
to start Monday morning bright and early, 
and this was Friday. For a moment a wild 
thought of “ boarding” his father’s train or, 
at least, following it, took possession of him, 
but he soon saw the absurdity of that. 

“ No use, Dick !” he said finally, shaking 
his chum off at the cross street. “ Of 
course I’ll have a talk with mother, but it 
won’t do any good. Fact is ”— 

“ It won’t cost a red cent, you know ! ” 
urged the tempter. “We fellows are going 
to rough it. It’s loads more fun anyway.” 

“They sort of depend on me—the ‘ man 
of the house,’ you know, when my father is 
away ! ” returned Bert, edging to the gate, 
as his heart failed him. 

“ Pooh ! You said yourself he’d be back 
in three days ! ” 

“Might be—was n’t sure!” called back 


28 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


Bert from the piazza porch, and then he 
turned the knob and went in. Supper was 
waiting for him and he sat down to it in a 
snappish humor that had for its root a feel¬ 
ing of disappointment and disgust with 
himself that he had so nearly capitulated 
and done what he liked instead of what 
he ought, as usual. For all that, he had 
conquered, and a little seed of gladness 
sprouted and grew and shot up in a night 
like Jonah’s gourd, and all the next forenoon 
he found himself sitting under its shadow 
with great delight. For once in his life he 
had done right! Time was when he would 
have won over his mother by special plead¬ 
ing, told his conscience that his feeble frame 
required rest and refreshment, shouldered 
his knapsack and started off with a heart as 
light as his heels, and small concern as to 
what his father might think of it. 

It is odd enough to notice this power over 
us of our own example. There is no influ¬ 
ence, good or bad, like our own influence. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 9 


“Child of thine own yesterdays” might 
almost be said of every one of us. Bert 
felt the spell of his own unusual action, and 
for the time, at least, it seemed to undo the 
spell of a thousand commonplace ones that 
had hitherto shaped his life. Not that he 
made any conscious resolves as he dodged 
his head among the rafters at his dressing 
that June morning. The time had not come 
for that. Not that he pondered deeply on 
the psychology of habit; he was not the 
boy for that, now or any time. He did not 
even tell his mother about the trip, as he 
had at first intended. 

“ No good in gabbing ! ” he muttered, as 
he slid down the ladder. “ I’m not going, 
and that’s all there is about it.” 

All there was to say about it, maybe ; 
but that summer’s going or not going made 
a vast difference to Bert Whitcomb’s life 
arrangements ; a difference which he by no 
means chose or planned for. Phil’s voice 
was the first to give him a prophetic hint of it. 


3 ° 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“ O Bert ! ” he shouted as if he were using 
a long-distance telephone, and thought 
strength of lung the chief factor in “ making 
connections,” “ do n’t you wish you knew 
who was going on a tramp this summer ? 
Start Monday.” 

“ No,” said Bert honestly and gloomily. 

“ I heard Tom Pickles’ father talking’bout 
it down t’ the grocery. They wanted Tom, 
you know. Old Mr. Pickles said he’d rather 
any boy o’ his would go to Jerry-something 
than be seen along o’ that crowd. Said it 
made him think less o’ Tom to know they 
asked him. Must ’a’ got an idea he was 
something o’ their stripe ! ” 

Bert knew this boy-baby brother of his 
was only repeating grocery gossip, parrot 
fashion, but he was silent, remembering how 
they had “ asked ” him. 


CHAPTER III 


ELECTIVES 


“This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin ; 
Ihis day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin.” 



HE Conanicut had already given her 


warning whistle, and people from the 
hotels were rushing down to the ferry 
wharf ; big, rattling teams were bumping 
along with their loads of milk and butter 
and early farm produce ; a liveried “ turn¬ 
out ” or two with prancing horses drove 
mincingly on board ; the ferryboat gave a 
second and final “ toot,” and the chains 
were loosed and the paddles churning. 

It is a fifteen-minute trip on the Conanicut 
from Jamestown to Newport. Dr. Jarvis 
Whitcomb missed it by one-sixteenth of one 
minute. Time and tide and ferryboats wait 


3 2 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

for no man. The purser, who knew him by 
sight very well, grinned a little as the gate 
rattled in place ; but his friendliness, such 
as it was, leaked out in that smile, and the 
blue gulf widened between them as it faded. 

That insignificant fraction of a minute 
seemed to grow in importance as the 
traveler’s anxious mind outran the little 
steamer, and touched at the various stations 
of his journey. At Newport it would make 
the difference between a good early morning 
start and an afternoon journey. At Provi¬ 
dence there was no possibility of anything 
“ connecting ” till the next day, surely, and 
who knew what vexatious delays might lie 
in wait for him further on ? 

He had been away a day already beyond 
his three allotted days. The mournful hours 
had been so filled with kind details of busi¬ 
ness for the bereaved home that he had 
hardly taken the loss home to himself as he 
would do later. He had planned things, 
arranged things, done things, seen to things, 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 33 

stepped into the awful gap that death had 
made in the lives of the two desolate women, 
as only a kind, good, unselfish man is ever 
able, with the result that the helpless terror 
in their eyes was being changed in three 
days to helpless trust, and he found him¬ 
self rather inconveniently indispensable to 
them. 

Not that Polly or her mother said this. 
Polly said nothing. As for her mother, his 
brother’s wife, perhaps—well, it might have 
been as well if she had said nothing, too. 
She was helpless enough, and she did trust 
him—to her very last bird-cage and band- 
box. But catch her telling him so ! Instead, 
she made his life a burden with her everlast¬ 
ing overseeing of every item and ordering, 
and afterward caused him much anguish of 
spirit by her useless complaining, till he got 
used to it and ticketed her off in his phil¬ 
osophical, medical way as one of a numer¬ 
ous class of patients — class neurosis , genus 

fidget. 

3 


34 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


At last he had to leave them, promising 
to “run down ” again, however, as soon as 
he could make it possible, and meanwhile 
offering to be depended upon for advice and 
assistance to the extent of the whole United 
States telegraph system, and getting Polly’s 
solemn promise that she would avail herself 
at need of all such facilities. 

“There’s my address !” he said, tearing a 
leaf out of his notebook. “ Do n’t put it in 
the tea caddy.” 

Polly was standing on the doorstep, curly- 
cropped and big-eyed. She looked up as if 
to speak, but cast a glance at her mother 
rocking miserably just inside the doorway, 
and went soberly past her into her little 
bedroom. Her uncle’s glance traveled 
through the crack of the door after her. 

“ Put it in her pocketbook,” he muttered 
approvingly, as he saw the top drawer open 
and shut carefully. “ She’s got a head on 
her shoulders, which is more than can be 
said of—um, urn ! ” 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


35 


A last word, a last hand grasp, and his 
heels crunched the gravel walk. He was 
not vain, but the house looked lonesome 
with no man in it. He looked back, and got 
a kind of kodak impression of Polly nailing 
up a dropping rose-vine with a hammer that 
hit all the wrong places. 

“ Give it to me, Polly ! ” 

He was back at her side. Somehow he 
could n’t bear to see her trying to do it alone 
—that morning. 

He took it, but she made him give it back 
again. The handle was wet and slippery. 

“ No, please ! ” she sobbed, and even in 
the little breaking voice he felt the will and 
firmness. “ ' T is n’t that I’m so awkward, 
but—I could n’t—quite see the head of the 
nail, you know ! I can’t cry to mamma ! 
So, if you do n’t mind, I’m doing it out here. 
And—one thing—I thought perhaps it would 
be a kind of sort of way of beginning to do 
things,—you know. Papa never let me.” 

He saw how it was. The symbolism of 


36 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

the act flashed on him. The great, heavy 
hammer in her awkward girl's hand. Such 
a chubby, little white hand ! “ Papa” had 

never let it “do things.” Now, in “ a sort 
of way ” it was beginning ! He gave her a 
big, strong hug and left her. Polly and her 
uncle from that moment were pretty well 
acquainted. 

And now his own cares pressed on him. 
To a man who has saved a little money, and 
is tremblingly putting it all into a home for 
his old age, there are worries innumerable, 
chief among them the fear that the money 
will not hold out unless every nail is 
pounded under his own personal supervision. 
The wisest men go daft on housebuilding. 
Dr. Whitcomb had an enviable reputation 
for levbl-headedness among bright and sen¬ 
sible men of his profession, yet he trusted no 
carpenter or architect living to build a house 
for him, and fondly believed that no head 
but his own could engineer such business. 

Bert was another unboiled pea in his pil- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 37 

grimage. What to do with the boy ! One 
thing was certain. He should have such a 
year of drill as never boy before had ever 
dreamed of. He would take him in hand. 
There was to be an end of all desultory 
dreaminess. The fellow was ruined unless 
he could bring his mind under rule—master 
himself somehow. That was the secret of 
his brilliant failure. His mind had never felt 
the rein. All this must be changed. He 
should have teachers that would leave their 
mark on him. He himself would— 

‘‘Toot! toot ! toot!” 

One could hardly blame the purser for his 
second grin, as he recognized his would-be 
passenger of an hour or so before still wait¬ 
ing patiently while the little vessel took her 
time to come back and pick him up. Mr. 
Whitcomb was absorbed in his thoughts and 
did not mind, but stepped on board briskly, 
with a sense of relief and resignation that 
had its rise in an old-fashioned everyday 
trust in an overruling Providence. “All for 


38 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

the best” is a phrase that gets to have a 
little tang of superstition in the mouths of 
some people. With the good doctor it was 
different. The simple faith that made him 
welcome at many a bedside, where skill 
could do nothing, was applied in the quietest 
way to the commonest things of life. 

“ It is all ordered, somehow! ” he reflected 
with a thrill of sweet satisfaction, such as a 
child in the dark might feel as its fingers 
close on its father’s hand and feels the lead¬ 
ing. “All for the best, I know. I ought to 
have thought ! Maybe that other train was 
to meet with an accident ! ” he added, smil¬ 
ing at himself as he would have smiled at 
another for this last supposition, yet half 
entertaining it, nevertheless. As if God’s 
care were only shown in saving us from acci¬ 
dent ! He did not think far enough to smile 
at the right thing, after all. He fell to 
thinking of Bert again, and then it was time 
to race for the Wickford landing, for he had 
resolved to go that way instead of the other, 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


39 


and the long ride on the windy deck cheered 
his mind insensibly, and made him readier 
to believe in a hopeful future for his hand¬ 
some vagrant of a boy. He should start in 
grandly with the opening of the college year, 
fit or no fit. Tutors could be hired Once 
get him in, “by the skin of his teeth,” he 
said to himself, and he should be kept up 
to the mark, if there was any compelling 
power on earth to do it. 

With such thoughts for company, he took 
the train, which without too much delay 
was on the track where he awaited it, and 
so we may leave him whirling comfortably 
along, while we go back to the little piazza 
porch where Bert and his mother are sitting 
talking over hopes, plans, and purposes and 
“ waiting for father.” 

“ Yes, I Ve marked it all out, mother ! ” 
said Bert confidentially. “Lots of things I 
want to study this year. The bother is, a 
good deal gets chalked out for a fellow. 
I’d make it all ‘ electives,’ if I had my say ! ” 


4 o A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

Mother smiled in the darkness. “ There 
are not many ‘ electives ’ in life, dear! 
Maybe it is just as well to get used to tak¬ 
ing the ‘ regular course ’! ” 

11 1 sha ’n’t ! ” said Bert confidently. 
“ Do n’t believe in it. This everlasting toe¬ 
ing the mark—somebody else’s mark—is n’t 
what it’s cracked up to be. I believe in the 
‘ freedom of the Will,’ as Will Somerby says 
when his father comes down on him with a 
whole decalogue of ‘ shalls ’ and 1 shall nots’ 
that are as good as a 1 stump ’ every time to 
do the other thing.” 

“ Poor Will ! ” said mother, laughing. 
She kept pretty well informed about the 
boys that Bert knew, which made it more 
interesting talking with her. 

“But then, I needn’t growl,” said Bert, 
going back to his own affairs. “ My course 
is all plain before me, marked out pretty 
much as I want it. There are two or three 
things I’m going to work for. One is the 
speaking. Maybe father is more than half 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 4I 

right. I do n’t know. Do n’t suppose I 
ever did pin my mind right down to any¬ 
thing, just as he says. Well, there’s a 
chance to try and see what good it will do. 
This next year your little boy is going to 
buckle right down to business,—did you 
know it, mother ? ” 

Mother patted the rough head under her 
elbow, and thought gratefully what a good 
boy it belonged to, after all,—at least, in 
sweet June dusks, on cool piazza porches. 
To-morrow, she reflected, he would be a 
rollicking hobbledehoy, tormenting Phil and 
his baby sister, who both adored him, mak¬ 
ing life a burden to poor Aunt Easter, and 
littering the house up from parlor to attic 
with baseball masks and fencing-foils. The 
comical side of it came uppermost, and 
made her give a little laugh that Bert re¬ 
sented as most unmotherly. 

“You laugh, if you want to !” he said 
hotly, popping his head up, and running 
both his big hands through the shaggy mane 


42 


A BUNKER UILL FAILURE 


in defiance. “ You wait and see ! Father’s 
down on me in the studying line, but I can 
study ! This year, sir, sees me transformed 
into the worst ‘ dig ’ in college ! Then, 
when I come home to the bosom of my fam¬ 
ily a year from now, pale, thin, hollow¬ 
chested, bald in spots, too, I dare say, or at 
least ‘ with silver streaks among the brown,’ 
you will all kneel in a row around my wasted 
form, and say, ‘ Forgive me.’ ” 

“ Who is that coming up the walk ?” said 
mother, breaking her laugh in two in the 
middle, as a step was heard on the asphalt 
sidewalk, and a click of the gate gave warn¬ 
ing of an approaching caller. 

“ Somebody in a hurry for father, by the 
rush ! ” said Bert, noting the hurried foot¬ 
step. “ Or, maybe, some of the fellows to 
talk over the ‘tramp.’ Forgot you didn’t 
know, mother! Half a mind to tell you 
and make a clean breast of it ! Oh, you 
need n’t be scairt. ‘ Tis n’t anything so very 
bad. Might grow to badness, I s’pose ! 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


43 


Need n’t worry—I ’ve quit that crowd. 
There, don’t ever ask me any more ! 
Thought I’d tell you, that’s all ! Hallo, 
Pickles, that you ?” 

No, it was n’t Pickles. Mother sat up 
listening, with her heart beating in her lips. 

“ It does n’t sound like your father ! ” she 
said under her breath. He was the one for 
whom she was listening. 

No, it was not father. The telegraph 
messenger put a thin brown envelope into 
her trembling fingers, and she stepped has¬ 
tily in to read it by the low-burning light in 
the sitting-room. It was very short, very 
cruel, like so many telegrams. There had 
been an accident an hour before on the 
Frankfort and Chester. Her husband was 
among the injured. He was cared for at an 
impromptu hospital, where she was anxiously 
expected. 

A few hours later all Chester knew what 
she knew, from bulletin boards and“ extras ” 
cried through the streets by shrill-voiced 


44 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


newsboys, but Bert and his mother were not 
there to hear it. When they did come, bring¬ 
ing back their share of the “ accident ” as ten¬ 
derly and comfortably as possible, more than 
one good friend and neighbor ran out of his 
house bareheaded to offer the help of strong 
arms or sympathy. 

“ It’s enough to set a man doubtin ’ the 
ways o’ Providence,” muttered one man in a 
blacksmith’s apron, standing aside to let the 
litter pass, “ to see a man struck down like 
that in middle life, an ’ a man that’s saved 
other folks as many aches as he has. He’s 
always talking about things being for the 
best, however they happen. If he ever gets 
well, I ’ll ask him how he spells this out.” 

“ Oh, if he had only taken the other route, 
as he planned ! ” sobbed the poor wife silent¬ 
ly, showing the children a brave face to 
“ hearten ” them and “ doing all her crying 
inside,” as Bert said to himself, after a sharp 
scrutiny of her cheerfulness. 

“ It’s jest the way, always ! ” said Aunt 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


45 


Easter, wringing her hands in real sorrow 
and sympathy. “And him with his new 
house a’most ready to go into ; an ’ now he ’ll 
die an’ leave it all, or if he don’t, the doc¬ 
tors’ bills will eat up all the money there 
was to build it. I’d lotted so on that house 
myself. I was a-goin ’ to had the west 
chamber. Three windows it had, and a 
chimly-place, so’t I could kin’le up a hand¬ 
ful o’ chips any time nights an’ mornin’s, 
’fore they begun to start up the furnace for 
the winter. One on ’em looked out on the 
Early Yellow, an’ I’d lotted on ketchin ’ the 
boys if they undertook to clomber over the 
fence when the pears was mellerin.’ ” 


CHAPTER IV 


POLLY 

“ All through the town 

The children were gladder that pulled at her gown.” 

— Mrs. Browning. 

T ’M Polly ! ” 

* The front door was open, letting in flies 
and other animals, and a short, round, brown¬ 
eyed, and brown-cheeked girl stood on the 
leaf-strewn doorstep, waiting for somebody 
to answer her low tap on the door panel. 
She refrained thoughtfully from touching the 
jingling little bell, which no one had thought 
to muffle, and which had more than once 
waked the sick man out of his light slumber. 
Nobody heard or came, and she turned to see 
a tiny slip of a girl tugging a little red cart 
full of dirt which she was transporting from 
the garden to the front portal of the doctor’s 

46 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


47 


mansion. A rusty iron spoon and the kitchen 
poker were tokens of the lax state of discipline 
in the household. Doddie didn’t usually 
bring those articles so far without protest. 

44 Huh! Who is you ?” 

This was the greeting which called out 
Polly’s answer. 

“ Come play wiv me ! ” said Doddie 
promptly. “Evvybody’s goned away off 
an’ I ’m lonesome. Papa Goggins has 
’slocated his arm. Did you know ’bout it ? 
An’ vey won’t let me go in ! ” 

The tongue of the red cart dropped from 
the two little dirty fists, and cart, dirt and 
all, rolled down the steps unheeded as the 
child’s woes overcame her, and two big tears 
splashed down among the lilac leaves, and 
picturesque little muddy landscapes ap¬ 
peared on her round cheeks. 

Polly was down on the top step in an 
instant, and Doddie crept into her arms in 
about the same space of time, knowing, as 
all children do, the right kind of a place to 


48 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

go to for a mothering. Polly crooned to her 
instead of playing with her, for it was a hot day, 
and the yellow curls were wet and clinging. 
Doddie was all tired out, and glad to be 
“ rock-a-byed, ” so Polly had no trouble in 
coaxing her off into the shady part of the 
piazza and putting her to sleep with a “There, 
there ! There, there ! ” that soothed her 
while it kept nobody else from sleeping. 

And that was the way Bert first saw Polly. 
He came flinging himself dpwnstairs in his 
usual impetuous fashion, quite forgetting the 
need for silence. He saw too late his 
mother’s warning, reproachful look and lifted 
finger, and came forward on creaking, re¬ 
morseful tiptoes to the very pretty scene in 
the piazza corner. Polly did not notice, and 
he stepped back to get his mother out there, 
who for a minute stood as puzzled as he 
could have wished, for she had never seen 
her niece, and did not look for any curly- 
headed angels. 

“ I’m Polly ! ” announced that young lady 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


49 


again, this time in a whisper, on account of 
Doddie. “ And I’ve come to help you ! ” 

“ My child !” said Mrs. Whitcomb, drop¬ 
ping a swift kiss on the round, childish fore¬ 
head. “Who came with you ? Where is 
your mother ? Why ”— 

“ I came alone,” she returned, answering 
categorically. “ Mamma wanted to go to a 
brother of hers out West for a little while, so 
as not to—think of things ! And she thought 
it was real nice for me, if you’d like me for 
a few days—till he’s better, you know. Then 
I’m going to school somewhere, in the fall, 
you know. Papa left money for that.” 

By this time Mrs. Whitcomb had taken 
the baby and was carrying her gently in to 
the lounge in the cool sitting-room, where 
Polly followed after a minute’s hesitation. 
As soon as Doddie was pillowed and screened 
and covered from draughts, the mother 
turned to Polly and began undoing her girlish 
wraps and making her comfortable. 

“ Bring a glass of lemonade, Bert,” she 
4 


50 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

said thoughtfully. “ I just saw Aunt Easter 
making some in the kitchen. The poor 
child has had all that long, hot journey, and 
then spent a good half-hour holding that 
heavy child in her arms ! ” 

“ Oh, Aunt Marian, do n’t wait on me ! ” 
protested Polly, looking ashamed, and almost 
pushing off Bert and his mother both. “ I 
came to do the other thing—I did really ! 
I heard about uncle, and I made mother let 
me, and she said you would n’t want me, but 
I knew I could make you ! I’m fifteen, and 
just as strong ! And you do n’t know how 
good Uncle Jarvis was to us ! I ’ll never 
forget it ! ” 

“He’s good to everybody ? ” growled Bert, 
gruffly, as if he were inclined to take the 
blacksmith’s view of the case, and rather 
indict Providence for bringing evil on so 
good a man. 

It was the first word Polly heard him say, 
and it took some time for her to get over the 
impression of that first bearishness. When 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 51 

she understood the reason, she liked him all 
the better for it. At fifteen and nineteen, 
boys and girls do not inquire patiently into 
the whys and wherefores of affliction. 

“ You ain’t the mother ! ” came in a stifled 
whine from the back yard at that moment, 
and then they heard the whish ! swish ! of 
something of the brush or broom kind, fol¬ 
lowed by more little snarls and whines in 
Phil’s voice, though not very loud, because 
Aunt Easter kept all the time telling him to 
remember his poor dead father lying there 
with all his legs dislocated from the shoul¬ 
der. Her anatomy was a little misplaced, 
but her sympathy was n’t ; and it had its ef¬ 
fect on Phil, who could n’t resent her atten¬ 
tions as loudly as usual. 

Bert listened an instant and jumped up 
with a bounce, disappearing through the 
back window with a muttered “ Anybody’d 
think she’s taking a stick to him ! ” This, 
he found, was not the case, and Phil was 
only protesting on general principles, not 


52 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

liking Aunt Easter in any capacity, least of 
all in that of a “ mother.” 

“ Yes, I’m dusting his jacket for him ! ” 
explained Aunt Easter innocently, not in¬ 
tending any metaphor. “ He’s been off with 
a raft*p’ pesky boys down Clay Point way, 
and you’d think to look at him he’d spent 
the night in a brick kiln. There! let the 
rest o’ the mud dry on a spell, an’ I ’ll have 
another brush at ye. It’s lucky your 
mother hain’t got any more husbands to 
come home to be took care of, or I do n’t see 
what would become o’ the whole mess on 
ye, let alone the neighbors.” 

Bert rescued the clayey image, as she 
went to hang up the old stump of a broom 
in the wood shed, and led him in, with pos¬ 
sibly a trifle more mud on than usual, to be 
introduced to his cousin Polly. Phil gave 
her one gimlety look that took in all her past, 
present, and future, decided that he liked 
her, and put up a pair of lips that no mud 
could make anything but sweet and kissable. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


53 


“ How long you goin’ to stay ? ” was his 
first remark. “ Did you brung me any¬ 
thing ? ” 

“ Just as long as we can keep her ! ” said 
his mother warmly, putting her arm around 
the cozy little figure. 

“ Of course I did !” said Polly promptly, 
remembering two seed cookies and a banana 
left from her car lunch. “Come help me 
fish them out of my satchel.” 

From that moment Polly’s place was con¬ 
quered in the Whitcomb house. The baby 
adored her, and Phil never once told her 
that she was n’t his mother, which was a sure 
sign of fealty. As for Bert and Aunt Marian 
and even Aunt Easter herself, as soon as she 
knew her, they spent their odd minutes 
wondering how they ever could have thought 
of such a thing as getting along without her. 
So soon does a bright, alert, helpful spirit 
win for itself its own little corner in the 
world—an ever-widening one that no gifts 
and no talents can ever buy for themselves. 


54 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


Oh, what a comfort she was in the long 
days that followed, when nobody but mother 
could seem to do any good by day or night 
in the sick-room ! Father would n’t have 
been selfish for the world, but a man with 
one splintered leg and a “ ’slocated shoul¬ 
der ” (as Doddie called it) and a bandaged 
head and darting pains and aches all over 
him, might be pardoned for thinking of 
them and forgetting about the children,, 
Not that he really did that, either, for he 
was always sending mother out and telling 
her he could get along perfectly well with¬ 
out her ; but his restless, wistful look and 
the state of his bandages told her a truer 
tale, and she silently made up her mind to 
stay there while he needed her if the 
whole rest of the world went to rack and 
ruin. 

So Phil came to Polly to have all his cut 
fingers done up, of which, as Bert said, 
he always had “ several on hand.” Baby 
Dorothy had her shoes tied up and her bibs 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 55 

tied on, and her little self generally kept out 
of mischief, and all with such an air of gayety 
and loving kindness that she did n’t know 
anything was being done to her. Aunt 
Easter did the same things, and no doubt 
with the same feelings of kindness, but there 
was a difference. 

“Polly makes you feel someway as if you 
was going to a picnic ! ” burst out Phil one 
day, and everybody felt that he had some¬ 
how put the whole thing in a nutshell. 

“He shall have teachers ! Tutors can be 
hired,” Bert’s father had said, planning for 
him, but it was days before he was well 
enough to know that a winsome and wise 
little teacher was already installed in his 
house, “ tutoring ” the big, thoughtless, good- 
hearted fellow in much needed lessons of 
unselfishness and self-control, all the more 
effectually because she did not for a moment 
imagine herself in the role of teacher to any¬ 
body. 

“What makes you so good?” Bert de- 


5 6 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

manded one day, perching himself on the 
table in front of her as she cut out cookies 
in rounds and hearts and other delectable 
shapes, while Doddie had her own special 
piece of “ doughd ” on her end of the cook¬ 
ing-board, and Phil “ clustered around ” 
where the hot pans smelled most fragrant. 

“ ‘ Specs I growed ’ ! ” said Polly lightly, 
handling her dough with deft fingers. 
“ What’s the trouble ? ” 

“Oh, you seem different!” said Bert 
vaguely. “Oh, I don’t mean goody-goody ! 
Not preachy / Should n’t like you if you 
were. I hate folks that ‘come before you in 
the capacity of a Sunday-school ’! ” 

“ Thanks ! ” said Polly mockingly, making 
a cookie-man, and pretending to glance 
anxiously at Bert to get the proportions right. 
“ I see you do n’t know ‘ dat air leddy ’! 
Could n't I preach to you, though, if I gave 
my mind to it ! ” 

“ Say, go on ! ” said Bert, sitting up sud¬ 
denly, his eyes twinkling. “ I believe I would 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


57 


like it ! You’re an awfully nice little thing, 
all the same ! ” 

“ Thanks, again ! ” said Polly, finishing the 
man, and putting him in the oven. “ Fifteen 
from nineteen does leave four. I shall have 
to call you Grandfather. The preaching 
will keep. I am saving it up for you.” 

“ She are goody-goody! ” cried Baby 
Doddie, resenting one of Bert’s remarks. 
“ I ’ll tell my Papa Goggins ’bout suts bad 
words ! ” With hands all cookie dough, and 
a dab of flour on cheek and chin, Polly’s 
white frilled apron tied round her with the 
strings crossed like shoulder braces, and a 
tongue hot with haste and indignation, she 
burst into the room where mother sat softly 
reading a “ Daily Verse ” or two in a way to 
soothe the aching head and heart at the same 
time. 

“ Papa Goggins ! Papa Goggins ! ” she 
cried, using the funny name she had in¬ 
vented for him from the time she had 
noticed that he wore glasses, and Bert had 


58 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

called them “ goggles ” to her once or twice. 
“ Are not my p’ecious Polly a goody-goody 
girl ? Bert’s a bad old boy ! An’ she 
makes me cookies and awfuls (waffles) and 
tells, ‘ Pray, Mrs. Cat, give me back my nice 
long tail again ! ’ ” 

Father looked weakly and inquiringly at 
mother, who instantly explained all about 
Polly. 

“ I did n’t tell you, dear, because you were 
so weak, but Polly came right to us as soon 
as she heard you were hurt. She said she 
wanted to help, and she is such a comfort ! 
I was afraid it would make you begin to 
think, and worry about her mother and so 
forth. But 

Just then she caught a glimpse of Polly’s 
‘white cooking cap outside the door, and saw 
Polly herself standing back a little in the 
entry, wringing her hands, but not even 
daring to call Doddie in a whisper. 

“ Come in for a minute, Polly ! ” said Aunt 
Marian with a glance at papa. “ He wants 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 59 

to see you. Here’s the little girl that knows 
how to make her part of the world worth 
living in ! ” 

Polly kissed him shyly and pitifully and 
went out with Doddie, well content with the 
low-spoken word of welcome he had dropped 
in her ear as it came near him. 

But a sorrowful experience lay just beyond 
the threshold for Polly. 


CHAPTER V 


NOT ACCORDING TO PROGRAM 
“ Kites rise against, not with the wind.” 

gERT tossed a letter at Polly gayly as she 
came out of the shadow of the sick¬ 
room. It hadn’t any black border, like most 
of those the postman brought her, so it never 
occurred to him that it could contain any 
bad news. But trouble slips in without 
ringing the bell as often as otherwise. 

It was that out-West brother who was 
writing. Even Polly could see more in the 
carefully guarded words than he meant to 
let creep into this first warning letter. What 
the pen says is really very little matter. The 
mind of the writer gets in, and goes under a 
two-cent postage stamp. 

“ Your mother’s health is very poor,” the 
60 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


61 


letter ran. “ We thought it best to let you 
know how feeble she has been since your 
father died. Her mind seems to have had a 
great shock. Do n’t be worried if she should 
n’t write to you very often. From the few 
weeks she has been with us, we feel that it 
is likely to be a good many months before 
she is quite well and herself again.” 

That was all, except pleasant words of 
kindness and sympathy, which fell dully on 
her mind, seeing they were from strangers. 
At the end a postscript begged her not 
to think of coming to her mother ; indeed, 
almost forbade it. She should hear from 
them again soon. 

All this was bad enough, but it was plainly 
intended as a kindly warning or preparation. 
Aunt Marian saw that at once, when Polly 
carried her the letter. No one was surprised, 
though terribly shocked, when, a few weeks 
later, news came that the poor woman had 
been taken seriously ill on the very first day 
of her appearance, and life and reason both 


62 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


seemed wavering in the balance. That was 
past, but the doctor said that nothing but 
good, long, patient nursing would restore 
her. 

Polly’s hands trembled as she took this 
second letter, and her red lips as well as her 
cheeks were white for a minute, as she took 
in the whole dreadfulness, but she neither 
fainted away nor threw up her arms with a 
cry of agony as the real book heroines are 
apt to do. Instead, she folded the letter 
slowly and carefully in painful creases, and 
put it back in the envelope, and that in 
her pocket. Then she crept over to Aunt 
Marian’s side quietly, and said in a low but 
firm little voice :— 

“ That settles the going away to school 
business.” 

“ Why, my dear !” said her aunt, startled 
a little. “You must enter South Halli- 
day, my dear child ! Your papa planned 
that! ” 

“There was just money enough,” said 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 63 

Polly. “ Now it will take a lot for mamma, 
and I ’ve got to get her well again ! ” 

It really was so settled. The child had 
her way about it. She got out her books 
and began to plan “ for the Normal.” That 
would be cheaper, she said, and put her in 
the way of earning money quicker. She 
would take only just enough money out of 
the bank to pay her board and leave a trifle 
over for clothes ; but when the board* ques¬ 
tion was broached, it was found that nobody, 
from Doddie up, would hear of any boarding- 
place that let her out of the Whitcomb gate. 
So it came about that for the present Polly 
found a place in the home nest, and the nest 
was willing to crowd a little for the sake of 
having her in it. 

Bert found her crying one afternoon on 
the back stairs with her head in the ironing 
basket. He was prowling around for nails 
or something, and thought he would go up 
that way to hunt in the tool chamber. 

“ I say, Poll! ” he began awkwardly, not 


6 4 A BUNKER BILL FAILURE 

being able to retreat gracefully without her 
seeing him, inasmuch as he had stepped on 
two of her fingers and set his boot into the 
yard or so of dress ruffle at the first bounce. 
“ It’s the meanest of the mean that you’ve 
got to give that up and take the Normal ! 
Wish I knew where to get the money for 
you.” 

Polly sniffed gratefully, but could n’t 
speak, because she was sucking her hurt 
fingers. 

“ Cry away! ” said Bert generously, pre¬ 
paring to leave, as he would have liked 
any boy to do under similar circumstances. 
“ Do you good. Need n’t mind my seeing 
you. Something more to cry about than 
most girls have when they go at it. Losing 
a whole college course or ‘ Sem. ’ or what- 
you-may-call-it, is a pretty chunky bit of bad 
luck to hit anybody, I should say. Mother’s 
been telling me all about it. ” 

“ Bert Whitcomb ! ” flashed Polly, snap¬ 
ping the words off like a firecracker. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 65 

“ Why, what’s the row ? ” said Bert, feel¬ 
ing as if a pet dog had snapped at him. 
“ Did n’t I say the right thing ? Did n’t 
mean to. ” 

“ O Bert ! ” groaned Polly, forgetting her 
wrath. Her temper was “ sparky, ” as she 
often owned, but there was no fire to it. “To 
think you should think I was sitting here 
like a pig, crying because I could n’t go to 
college, when there’s my precious mother to 
cry about ! ” 

“Oh ! ” said Bert, enlightened. A thought 
or two crossed his mind, but he did n’t say 
it. He had once or twice seen Polly’s 
mother. 

“ And I was cross with her—almost—in 
my mind I was, Bert ! I used to get im¬ 
patient because she was nervous and troubled 
over things, and I called it fussy and fidgety. 
And all the time the poor thing was tipping 
right over the edge of nervous prostration ! 
And when she worried over her birds, and 
for fear their cages would n’t be taken care 


66 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


of, I thought she was unfeeling to go on so 
when papa was lying there. 0 Bert! it was 
I that was unfeeling and stupid—stupid and 
blind as a bat ! I ought to have known it 
was just her dreadful worry about papa that 
made her ! Oh, do you s’pose the Lord ever 
forgives anybody for being a fool ? ” 

11 Say, Polly," said Bert soberly, now that 
he understood, “ do you know I would n’t 
make myself sick that way any more. Let 
me call mother. No ? Well, I won’t. Only 
sop up now, and let it all go, mistakes and 
all the rest of it. I don’t believe it was half 
so bad as you say, though I should n’t wonder 
if the fathers and mothers do have a pretty 
hard time with some of us, that’s a fact ! ’’ 
he added ruefully. “ Anyhow, crying never 
did anything but make your nose red. Run 
up through the store-room and wash your 
face. I ’ll make ’em think you had a tooth¬ 
ache. Fond of pepper in a poultice ? What 
is your favorite flavor ? Go quick ! I hear 
somebody coming ! And say, dear, I would 


A BUNKER I11LL FAILURE 


67 


n’t worry—too much—about your mother ! 
Give her a little time to rest up—that’s all 
she needs! Give you my word for it ! ” 

Polly might have reflected at another time 
that Bert’s “word” carried less weight with 
it than that of some medical authorities, but 
she was too lonesome and homesick and re¬ 
morseful to refuse to gather up any least 
grain of comfort, and she really felt a good 
deal cheered up by the time her face was 
washed. 

Bert did n’t carry out any elaborate hypoc¬ 
risies about poultices or toothaches, con¬ 
sidering, when he came to think of it, that 
she was only a girl, and nobody would mind ; 
and they did n’t, audibly. Aunt Marian shot 
one or two pitying glances at her across 
the teacups, and Phil made a brown ring 
of holey seed jumbles round her plate, 
feeling that that ought to cure whatever was 
the matter with anybody. Doddie kept 
slipping down from her high-chair to walk 
round and feed her with cambric tea out of 


68 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


a teaspoon, saying after every dose, “ Now, 
’at ’ll make you feel all better ! ” On the 
whole, what with Aunt Easter’s melting 
shortcakes and a double help of strawberries, 
health and spirits were much improved by 
the time they left the supper table. 

Bert cast a keen glance now and then in 
her direction, trying to settle a doubt or two 
that had arisen in his own mind. Had she 
been “ hitting at him ” in her talk about her 
“piggishness” he would like to know? 
What was that preaching she had been 
saving up for him ? Anything to do with 
his going to college, after all that had hap¬ 
pened ? He was n’t given to “supposing” 
when there was a chance of finding out the 
truth in the matter and asked her point- 
blank the minute he got a chance at her. 

“ Of course not, you silly !” she answered 
so honestly, that he saw he had been too 
suspicious. “A man’s different ! ” 

The end of her speech made up for the 
beginning, and he straightened up morally, 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 69 

feeling equal to anything in the line of 
generosity and the other kindred graces. 

“ Did n’t know but you thought I ought 
to ‘buckle to,’ as father likes to talk about, 
and help along! ” he said as he went off 
whistling. 

Polly protested she had no such thought, 
but the idea, once in his head, would not 
whistle away easily. It bothered him all the 
evening as he sat pretending to read Conan 
Doyle and really reading Polly, who sat 
opposite him over her Normal school books. 
She was only fifteen, going on sixteen, and 
the sixteen would not be really an accom¬ 
plished fact until after the beginning of the 
regular school term, so that she worried con¬ 
siderably over her age or rather her youth, 
and meant to bias everybody’s judgment by 
her superior scholarship. Her resolution 
once taken, she was at her books every 
evening. Somehow her example was stim¬ 
ulating. 

Aunt Easter’s croaking prophecy did come 


7 ° 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


true in one particular before the summer 
was over. Sickness and doctor’s bills made 
sad inroads on the family purse (which had 
always been too much of a neighborhood 
purse to‘ be very heavy for the family) and a 
day came when father sat up in bed and de¬ 
manded to see the accounts of the new house 
that was building. After a troubled hour 
or two at them, he leaned back languidly on 
the pillow and shut his eyes to think. 

Not much was said that day, but before 
long it was whispered about the home that 
the dear new house was to be given up, and 
even that a purchaser had been found who 
was willing to take it in its unfinished state, 
if the owner would not require cash for it. 
So this hope of a nice house was given up, 
at least for the present. Father said, cheer¬ 
fully, that there was more-timber where that 
came from, when they were in a little better 
shape to pay for it, which hopeful view of 
the case was a little dashed by Phil’s inquiry 
whether they had got to wait for it to grow. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 71 

“ The great thing,” said father, “ is to have 
a little unspent surplus on hand, in case I 
should n’t get round right away. We can 
be comfortable here awhile longer, eh, 
Bert ?" 

“The rest can,” said Bert, after a minute’s 
pause, during which he had taken a great 
gulp of resolution. “ I sha’n’t be here to be 
uncomfortable.” 

“ No, to be sure ! ” said his father. “ You 
will be off to college. I forgot. Well, you 
won’t suffer in vacations, either.” 

“I didn’t mean that, sir!” said Bert 
quickly. “Iam not going to college this 
year, unless you make me, I can tell you, 
using up all the little money in the house, 
when you don’t know where the next is 
coming from ! I shall stay out and earn my 
own money.” 

“ No such thing !” said his father hastily, 
looking very much disturbed. 

“ It’s just the thing that ought to be ! ” 
said Bert, his mind fast making up “to stay ” 


72 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

under opposition. “A great strapping fel¬ 
low like me, and you flat on your back ! 
When you get round again, that’s another 
thing.” 

Father looked at him steadily, as if to see 
what was the matter with him. Those keen 
eyes were used to diagnosing mental states, 
as well as physical ones, but something in 
Bert’s face puzzled him, nowand then, since 
his accident. A kind of steadiness and pur¬ 
pose shone there when practical questions 
of this sort came up in council. He had 
thought so once or twice before, and won¬ 
dered. Bert found himself and his senti¬ 
ments not quite so readily poohed down as 
once had been the rule. Gleams of good 
sense cropped out like free gold here and 
there, and set one questioning whether the 
ore of boyish character might not yet, 
in miner’s phrase, “ pan out well ” after 
all. 

“ Nonsense !” said his father, but not so 
very positively ; and his mother looked up 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


73 


as if a way of escape had been opened out 
of a great dilemma. 

“ I must have you go to college !” she 
said in a soft, pained voice that contradicted 
the eyes, for Bert certainly saw relief in 
them. 

“ Of course I am going !” responded Bert 
indignantly. “I’m going to take it a year 
later, that’s all ! ” 

“ What is the good of waiting? ” asked his 
father almost fretfully. “ What can you do 
to earn money—a boy like you ?” 

Bert got up and stretched his long arms 
and shook out his long legs, and looked at 
himself dispassionately. 

“ Let him see you do the ‘high kick/ 
Bert,” begged Phil, in whose eyes Bert was 
a young Apollo and Hercules combined. 
“ That 11 show him ! ” 

“ They don’t pay for kickers !” laughed 
Bert, making no attempt to “show him,” 
however. “ But I am sure I could find 
something to do if I tried—know I could ! ” 


74 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“ Why don’t ye run a groc’ry team—and 
take me on mornings ? ” burst out Phil again. 
“ You can if you wanter. There’s a man 
wants a boy just about your size. I told him 
we would—one of us—prob’ly. ” 

“Told him—who?” asked his mother 
breathlessly, while even father burst out 
laughing at the off-hand way in which Phil 
did business. 

“ Mr. Royce—do n’t you know—Quaker 
Royce ? Keeps a groc’ry store down t’ the 
Square, and one of his men’s dead or married 
or something, so ’t he wants a new boy. 
Here he is now to ask about it! ” 

Phil spoke the words'of truth and sober¬ 
ness. Before the visit was concluded Bert 
was engaged to “go on a team,” as Phil 
expressed it, for a weekly salary that added 
quite appreciably to the family income. He 
was to board at home, so he had screwed his 
courage a peg higher than it needed to go. 
His own comfortable home was very dear 
to Bert, and gay as were his words of self- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 75 

renunciation, he had dreaded the “ going out 
into the cold world ” quite as much as the 
purely self-denying part of postponing college 
for a year. 

A word to his father when he went to bed 
that night let him into the whole secret of 
the sudden change of plan, and took all the 
sting out of it. 

“ I’ve made up my mind to ‘buckle to/ 
as you say, father,” Bert told him with his 
face in the shadow. “You used to say it 
did n’t make so much difference what you 
do it at. I’ve a notion it’s something like 
‘ Gym.’ practice. Course, if you can get it, 
the regular ‘Gym.’ is the best thing, with 
hours and trainers, and fellows to rub you 
down ; but you can get quite a good wind 
running by yourself on errands ; see ? and 
filling coal-hods and so on are a sort o’ ‘ health 
lifts,’ if you take ’em so ! ” 

Bert’s tone was full of boyish fun, and no¬ 
body but his father would have guessed the 
sober earnest that masqueraded in the guise 


76 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

of gayety. A heartier hug than usual was 
his only comment, but Bert knew well that 
his father had had a peep into his heart, and 
went to bed happy in the knowledge. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE REGULAR COURSE 
“ King of two hands, he does his part. ” 


/ T a O his mother Bert only remarked, quizzi¬ 
cally, that he had made up his mind 
to drop “ electives ” and take the regular 
course. 

The talk in the June dusk all came back 
to her. Was this, after all, what she had 
meant ? 

“ A course o’ measuring out molasses and 
vinegar ! ” sniffed Aunt Easter scornfully. 

“ Yes, that’s what I mean, Aunt Easter!” 
said Bert good-naturedly. “ All depends 
on me, I expect, how much it amounts to.” 

“ ‘ Doe the nexte thynge !' ” said mother 
a bit wistfully. She had said it that night, 
she remembered. Then it meant doing the 

thing she wished. Now— 

77 


78 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“ Take what comes, and if it do n’t come,— 
wait ! ” responded Bert light-heartedly. “ I 
reckon the course will be just about as much 
good to me if I do n’t have the picking and 
choosing of it.” 

‘“There’s a clew will take you through ! ’ ” 
called father from his sofa, overhearing ; and 
Bert went off laughing, with the odd rhyme 
ringing in his ears. 

He was to go to work the next day. That 
day he made extensive preparations in the 
way of note and memorandum books. A 
pair of overalls was purchased and some 
straw cuffs, and with these and a full line of 
blocks and pads and notebooks, Bert felt 
equal to any emergency. 

“ When I have anything given me to do 
after this, ” he said, looking fondly at a long, 
thin book marked “ Men I want to see, ” 
“ down it goes, and the man I’m sent errands 
to goes down here, and I’d like to see my¬ 
self forgetting him ! I ’ll make the old man 
think I’m a kind of a blue-trousered angel 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


79 


just manufactured for his special benefit, 
with ‘ Royce ’ on the label. I do n’t often 
make resolutions, but here goes: ‘ I wont do 
a single thing this year just because I like 
it! ’ ” 

It did not occur to him to put that down 
on his memorandum block, which accounts 
perhaps for remembering it so often. 

The first few weeks were not all drudgery. 
The cool October mornings were worth 
getting up and out for, and when, as often 
happened, Phil was up, too, and ready to 
“ hop on ” when word was given, it was any¬ 
thing but hardship to ride through the 
pleasant by-streets at a breakneck pace, or, 
where customers were thicker, to jump off 
at every house or two and dash up back 
stairs as though time were precious, dump 
his packages on kitchen tables, and clatter 
down again for somebody else’s basketful. 
Every one knew “ the doctor’s boy,” and had 
a good word for him, liking him all the better 
that his answering word was tossed back at 


8 o 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


them over his shoulder, as he went about 
his business. Mr. Royce said nothing about 
angels, but he did congratulate himself upon 
finding a boy who “ could get round spry,” 
as he expressed it. Yet he kept a good 
sharp eye on his new clerk and noted down 
a tendency or two that he meant to speak 
about when the time came. 

“ Thee spends a good deal of spare time 
bookkeeping, seems to me,” he remarked 
good-naturedly, one day, seeing Bert take 
out his tablets as usual, after a customer 
had gone. 

“ My cure for a short memory!” laughed 
Bert in an embarrassed way. It was not 
the first time he had been quizzed on “ the 
memorandum habit.” “Good way to piece 
it out, do n’t you think so ? ” 

“ Short memory ! Young fellow like 
thee !” said the Quaker in pretended scorn, 
with a twinkle in his eye that took all the 
hurt out of his words. “A man’s mind is 
the best memorandum book. Thee ’ll read 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE g r 

in the Bible how the commandments were 
written on stone tables and both of them got 
broken. Then a second set was made, and 
they were locked up in a gold chest with 
two gold angels sitting on the lid of it. But 
when they really began to amount to any¬ 
thing as laws, God began to fulfil his prom¬ 
ise to write them on the ‘ fleshly tables of 
the heart.’ There ’s a hint for thee, boy. 
Memory was given to remember with. ” 

“ Why, but,” said Bert in perplexity, 
“ here I might go forgetting something im¬ 
portant ”— 

“ Thee’d better not ! ” growled the old 
man with eyes that sparkled pleasantly, if 
sharply. 

“ —the very next time I tried it. Make 

some woman go without her dinner, maybe ! 

Then what would you say to me ? ” 

“ Don’t thee dare to forget anything ! ” said 

Mr. Royce with fierceness. “ Thee has no 

business to go forgetting. The best scout or 

spy carries his papers in his mind, not in his 
6 


82 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

boots. Thee can train thy mind to remember 
a customer’s order to a syllable, as if it were 
a general’s despatch, with life and death in 
every letter of it.” 

“ I thought it was rather foolish to go 
lumbering up my mind with things of no 
use,” said Bert in his debating-society voice. 

“ No more foolish than for the soldier to go 
through his daily drill or ‘ Manual of Arms,’ 
for exercise. It’s all useless, from one point 
of view. There’s no fighting done, nobody 
killed ; but he is learning the trick of killing. 
Thee is getting good exercise every day, but 
not by any such foolishness ! ” 

Bert was only half convinced, and that 
night he talked it over at home a little. 

“ Why do they call him ‘ Quaker Royce,’ 
father ?” he asked curiously. “ I can’t see 
any Quaker about him, except his ‘ thee ’ and 
‘ thou,’ and he sometimes forgets that. And 
he is anything but a peace man. I should 
say he came of regular old fighting stock! 
All his talk is about fighting and killing and 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 83 

marching and drilling, and his idea of a 
Christian is just Paul’s to the life—a good 
soldier.” 

“ His Quaker speech is an old fashion 
kept up out of love for his mother, who 
was a Quaker—literally his mother tongue. 
He is a soldier in his make-up, and one that 
can ‘ endure hardness.’ I wish every boy in 
town could be apprenticed to such a man as 
that awhile, to wake up the man in him. 
About this talk of his, he has half the right 
of it. As somebody says, ‘There are men 
of memorandums, and men of present work.’ 
You want to do a thing the minute you think 
of it, if you can, while you are interested, 
while the whole matter is fresh in your 
mind.” 

“ Oh, IVe noticed that often ! ” said Polly, 
looking up from her dictionary. “ Once in 
a while I make a memorandum to look up a 
word, when I’m done reading and by the 
time I get round to it I Ve forgotten what I 
wanted to know for ! ” 


8 4 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“ Exactly,” said her uncle. “Thecontext 
has faded out of your mind. Even if it had 
n’t, the train of thought it started has. In 
reading the newspaper you often come on 
some name that you never heard of, but if 
you take the lazy way of 4 making a note 
on’t,’ instead of getting out your atlas at 
once, you lose the pleasure of the knowledge 
while you are reading, and very likely it is 
hard to remember when you do look it up, 
because your interest is all gone.” 

“ I know it! ” said Bert thoughtfully. 
“ The other day I was in at Will Somerby’s, 
and the girls and Will’s mother had just 
been to the minister’s house to see amission¬ 
ary lady who was getting ready to go to 
Alaska or World’s End somewhere. I did 
n’t stop to look, but there they got the big 
atlas down, and a gazetteer, and half a dozen 
volumes of the Britannica, for all I know, 
just to fix it in their minds, Will’s father 
said.” 

“ You’d better have stayed and got fixed 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 85 

too ! ” laughed his father. “Butthat shows 
just the point. What you take pains about, 
you remember. I remember a German 
professor who used to insist (or pretend to 
insist) that we should keep our dictionaries 
at the top of the house, or in the cellar, if 
that was more inconvenient, so as to make 
as much trouble for ourselves as we could 
every time it came to looking up a word.” 

“ Another good way is to have times 
for doing things ! ” put in mother, who 
was taking off Doddie ; s little pink-toed 
stockings. 

“ There’s your mother, now, undressing 
the baby ! I warrant you she never made a 
memorandum about it ! ” 

“ Oh, you blessed little duffer ! ” cried 
Bert, dropping down on the floor at his 
mother’s knee to pinch the little pink piggies. 
“Make a memorandum about getting at 
you ! well, I guess not ! I guess we’d have 
to make a memorandum not to ! ” 

“ No matter about doing that sort of thing 


86 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


any more,” said Mr. Royce, coming in one 
morning and finding Bert sweeping up, and 
getting things to rights and decks cleared 
for action, so to speak. “ We ’ll have a small 
chap in here after this who will have it for 
his business.” 

Mr. Royce did not choose to waste a clerk 
on sweeping who was available for other 
things, and it did not take him long to find 
out some of Bert’s capabilities. For one 
thing, he soon discovered that he was an 
invaluable solicitor or collector of bad bills. 
He had patience to dun and dun and dun 
again, and that without offence to the touch¬ 
iest customer. The “ siller on his tongue” 
drew, sooner or later, the “siller” to his 
pocket, and Bert’s ready sympathy in a real 
case of “ hard times,” and his obliging offers 
to call again at a more convenient season, 
made it more difficult for people to put him 
off than if he had been harder-hearted and 
less pleasant-spoken. 

The little chap’s Christian name, when he 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE g ; 

came, was Jacky. It was the only Christian 
thing about him. A dozen times a day, 
when Bert happened to be around so often, 
he wished he had the sweeping or anything 
else to do, rather than the oversight of such 
a young monkey. The other clerk and the 
bookkeeper would have nothing to do with 
him, so it fell to Bert’s share to look after 
his morals and manners, if one might speak 
of such things in such a connection. 

Oddly enough, the little scamp took to 
Bert from the first “ Hollo, Bubs ! ” that he 
gave him. He admired Bert’s tall, straight 
figure. He imitated with a comical swagger 
the easy swing of Bert’s long legs, and the 
poise of his broad shoulders, and found his 
bright, cheery salutations right and left so 
charming that he copied those, too, most 
faithfully, with laughable results. 

The bookkeeper was the first to notice his 
devotion. 

“That little beggar follows you like your 
shadow ! ” he said one day when Jacky hap- 


88 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


pened to be out of the way for a moment. 
“ Wish you could manage to lose him some¬ 
where ! ” 

“ Why, has he been cutting up specially 
to-day ? ” laughed Bert, loading himself with 
bundles. 

“ He’s always doing it specially ! ” said 
the bookkeeper in an aggrieved tone. 
“ Can’t see what the boss wants to keep 
him around for. He picks up the queerest 
specimens ! ” 

“ That’s what you thought when I came 
in,” laughed Bert, going off with his arms 
full. Somehow a warmer feeling sprang 
up toward Jacky from that moment. One 
specimen must try to improve the other. 

Turning a sharp corner suddenly while 
his thoughts were full of him, Bert came on 
a care-free group of urchins, of whom Jacky 
was one, playing marbles. It looked like a 
prosperous game on Jacky’s part, and there 
was no quarrelling going on ; but Bert 
thought it was a good chance to impress 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 89 

upon him the fact that it was not what Mr. 
Royce paid him to be doing at ten o’clock of 
a morning. He lighted on him before the 
horse had come to a standstill, and with a 
hand at the top and bottom of his jacket, 
helped him unceremoniously to a seat be¬ 
side him in the wagon. 

“ Shall you tell the boss ? ” asked Jacky, 
when he had got his breath, and found that 
Bert had no remarks to offer. 

“Tell him what?” said Bert, facing him 
with a square look of inquiry that made 
Jacky grow red between the freckles. 

“Why—ah—’bout you cotching me’t the 
marbles! ” he answered awkwardly, wrig¬ 
gling the words out as if they hurt him. 

“Why—what’s the matter with that?” 
asked Bert innocently. “ Was n’t that all 
right ? You seemed to be having a good 
game, and no fighting.” 

“ Why, course I ought to be going on my 
arrand,” said Jacky, taking heart at Bert’s 
cool tone and friendly manner. “S’posed 


9° 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


that was what you was mad about when you 
pitched me in here. That old bookkeeper 
sent me, and”— 

“Then get out of here and do your er¬ 
rand ! ” cried Bert, pulling up so suddenly 
that the white horse almost sat down in his 
willingness to obey orders. “I should think 
I was a nice fellow not to do anything I 
ought to do ! ” 

Jacky dropped in the road, stood with 
astonished mouth and eyes a moment, and 
then, incredible as it may seem, actually 
walked off as he was told, on the business 
that was expected of him, appearing half an 
hour later with something like a satisfactory 
account of his mission. It was a red-letter 
day in his calendar. 

As for Bert, he burst out laughing hilari¬ 
ously as soon as he was safely out of eye and 
earshot. It was the first time in his life 
that he had ever done anything preachy. 
He was not sure now of the effect of it, but 
the bit of acting had been done on the spur 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE ^ 

of the moment, and it rather pleased him 
to think it over. 

By degrees more serious thoughts came 
over him, and he began to wonder how it 
would do to fight it out on that line with 
Jacky, if it took him all winter. It was very 
easy to see (and not at all unpleasant) that 
Jacky set him up on a pedestal and made a 
hero of him. The impulse seized him to 
make a handle of it for missionary effort in 
behalf of this small heathen. 

“ Why not ?” said Bert, cracking his whip 
in a resolved fashion that the white horse 
translated into an order to hurry. “ Here 
am I always wanting somebody to help me 
up the ladder, and getting all the boosts 
I can up it, and here’s Jacky only a round 
below. Pity if I can’t spare one hand to 
reach down to him if he wants it ! ” 

That picture of a ladder appealed to him. 
A kind of vision of the great and good of all 
ages came before his eyes. The ladder was 
high and the top of it reached unto heaven. 


92 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


Angels went up and down—winged angels 
who did not need to climb, and so had free 
hands to help others with ; but the helpfulest 
of all were men themselves, only men, not 
angels, men without wings, who spared one 
hand from their own climbing and reached 
it down lovingly to the next below them. 
Grand faces looked down on him ; sweet eyes 
smiled tenderly ; surely this was the “glorious 
company of the apostles,” and the noble 
army of all those who, living or dying, were 
followers of the great Helper and loved to 
set their foot in the print of his shoe. 

“Halloa!” cried a piping voice at the 
wheel as he turned into the yard and sprang 
out to unharness. “ I—I did the arrand as 
you told me ! ” 

“ Good for you, Jacky !” said Bert briefly, 
handing him the grain measure to fill for 
him. The child came back in a minute with 
it filled to just the right height, and poured 
the contents into the nose bag with a care¬ 
ful hand that spilled nothing, and an air of 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


93 


attending to business. Then he sidled up 
to Bert confidentially and looked him in the 
face as squarely as Bert had looked at him 
in the wagon. 

“ Say ! do you always do what you ’d 
oughter ? ” 


CHAPTER VII 


OWING TO THE OUTLOOK COMMITTEE 

“ Take hold with God in his steady work for lifting up 
the world.” 

—E. E. Hale . 

T3 ERT was obliged to confess to himself 
that that bit of fatherly advice which 
had seemed to.work so well on Jacky had 
turned out to be rather of a boomerang 
nature. He had not confessed anything to 
Jacky, except as his face had answered for 
him, but the question still rankled, and he 
knew of no way of getting rid of the uncom¬ 
fortableness. 

The truth was, Jacky had answered it for 
himself, after a moment’s sharp scrutiny. A 
long, disappointed breath escaped him, and 
he dropped the hand he had caught up in 
his confidential eagerness. 

“ No matter. I guess you do n’t. Nobody 
94 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


95 


does,” he said wistfully and turned away, 
quite unconscious that in this orthodox con¬ 
clusion he agreed with all the Old Testament 
and New Testament writers since Adam. 

Somehow Bert winced—he could not help 
it—in face of his small judge, as he had 
never done under any pulpit thunders. 

“ I guess you do n’t. Nobody does ! ” 
Snub nose and freckled face could not 
quite spoil the pathos of that disappointed 
judgment. Alone, in his low-browed cham¬ 
ber, Bert writhed under it. He had a kind 
of ill-used feeling that it ought not to have 
been said to him. Were all these weeks and 
months of self-denial to go for nothing ? 
had not his father already begun to trust him 
and lean on him and respect his opinions ? 
Was he to be classed with all the rest of the 
world—the world of Jackys and Dicks and 
other fellows without aspirations or purpose ? 
he, Bert Whitcomb, who had turned a square 
corner, if ever a boy did turn one ? 

His hand went up to the tiny shelf at the 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


96 

side of his bed, where lay a rather dusty 
Bible. He opened the pages at random, 
not looking for anything. One place was as 
good as another. 

“ If we say that we have no sin , we de¬ 
ceive ourselves. ” 

The book went back to its shelf hastily. 
A sound of bright laughing voices floated up 
the ladderway and there was a breezy open¬ 
ing and shutting of doors, as of a sudden 
invasion of young visitors. He heard his 
own name spoken, and ran down with a sense 
of relief to see what was wanted. 

“ Oh, are n’t we lucky ! ” cried Lilian 
Farnsworth rapturously, as Bert opened the 
door and stood in the midst of the merry 
group. “ We have n’t been able to find a 
soul to-night hardly, unless we ‘ found ’ them 
out till now ! ” 

“ Hunting for souls, are you ?” struck in 
Bert recklessly. 

“ We ’re—the—Outlook Committee ! ” said 
Lilian with a little gasp of surprise at his 


A BUNKER BILL FAILURE 


97 


tone and manner, which were most unlike 
him. “Out for recruits,” she added gayly, 
recovering herself; “and we want you to 
come and help fill up the meeting.” 

“ Can’t take No for an answer,”said Lark 
Davis, who stood at her elbow. “ Our 
meetings are stupider than an owl. Must 
have some new life in them. We agreed to 
go around this week to every house in town 
and drum up all the folks in it that ought to 
be Christian Endeavorers.” 

“Associate Member, if you want to,” 
chimed in Hattie Creighton timidly, as she 
saw Bert’s face saying No for him. “ That 
is n’t promising anything very awful. ” 

“ That’s lucky ! ” cried Bert with a laugh. 
“ I’m not prepared for anything very awful, 
I dare say! So it’s a Christian Endeavor, 
is it ? Thought’t was a straw ride or some¬ 
thing when I heard you come in. All the 
same. I ’ll come ; course I ’ll come. Any¬ 
thing to please and oblige, as we say on 

our billheads. ” 

7 


98 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

And so the invitation was given and ac¬ 
cepted, jovially, as if it had been to a straw 
ride, as Bert had hinted. Still it had been 
given. The Outlook Committee had been 
“ faithful.” Its lightness was half put on, 
for the sake of attraction. So much is said 
in these days about cheerfulness as an aid 
to religion and the necessity of avoiding not 
only gloom but over-earnestness, at least in 
appearance, that it is small wonder if the 
pendulum sometimes swings to the other 
extreme, and giggling earnestness is more or 
less in fashion. As for Bert, in his present 
mood anything would have jarred on him, 
this perhaps not more than another. He 
excused himself to get ready to go out, and 
the chattering group betook themselves to 
their rounds again. 

“Go for Dick—Dick Halford!” called 
Bert from the stairway. “ He ’ll do to fill 
up,” he added maliciously. 

“ Dick ! ” cried Hattie in a tone of dismay, 
and “ Dick ! ” echoed Lark and one or two 


*1 Wo. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 99 

of the others. All seemed to .think Dick 
was not the sort of fellow to ask to a Christ¬ 
ian Endeavor. 

“ Go for him yourself ! ” said Lark over 
his shoulder ; and the others laughed as if 
it were a good joke and a capital way out of 
the dilemma. 

“ Don’t think he would come for me,” re¬ 
joined Bert grimly. “ Last time I saw him 
to speak to he wanted me to go on a tramp, 
and I would n’t. Thinks I’m too high and 
mighty, I’ve heard say.” 

There were a good number of souls and 
bodies gathered somehow in the Christian 
Endeavor room that night. Bert looked 
around curiously. He knew most of the 
faces there, of course. He wondered how 
many of them were Associate Members and 
how many had promised something awful. 
That was the Pledge, he supposed. It 
hung right in front of him behind the plat¬ 
form, so that his eyes wandered over it 
mechanically. A clause in it brought to 


100 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


mind that dusty Bible with the uncomfort¬ 
able verse in it. It would be turning over a 
new leaf to “ Pray and read the Bible every 
day ! ” He sighed and frowned and looked 
about to see who else was there besides him¬ 
self. 

Dick !—of all persons to be drummed up 
for a Christian Endeavor meeting ! Perhaps 
he thought it would be “ jolly.” 

Bert wondered if perhaps they had tried 
to give him that impression. 

The meeting was not different from other 
meetings. You, at least, have not been 
asked to come into it for “ spice ” or novelty. 
There were prayers and much singing and 
some scolding of each other for not taking 
part, after the manner of the services of their 
elders. There were verses of Scripture and 
“testimonies.” The members of the Out¬ 
look Committee, with bright little smiles on 
their faces, did their best to enliven the 
meeting. 

All at once a new voice broke the instant’s 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


' IOI 


“ hush that followed prayer." It came from 
Dick’s corner, but it was not Dick’s loud, 
hearty tone, and the difference startled them. 
“ Queer," Hattie Creighton called it in a loud 
whisper, and perhaps that is vague enough 
to stand for a characterization. 

“ Friends, I do n’t know why I came in 
here to-night ! ” 

He said one sentence and then stopped 
as if he had forgotten the rest of it. Could 
it be that Dick was growing bashful ? It 
was Dick who had carried off Bert’s prize 
on the night of the “Walker ” competition. 
Bert wondered if he were afraid of the sound 
of his own voice in a prayer-meeting. 

“ Came ’cause we asked you! ” whispered 
Lilian ; and Hattie giggled. 

Dick never minded. His eyes were down¬ 
cast. He was struggling with some feeling 
that burst forth presently in a few choking 
syllables which might not have sounded 
eloquent elsewhere, but which made the 
silliest there sit up a little straighter and 


02 ' 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


soberer, and gave those who were really 
earnest at heart a thrill of joy akin to that of 
the angels. 

“ It’s something in that pledge, I think,” 
said Dick, looking up at it. “ My eyes just 
glued right to it when I first got in here. 
Specially those two, three words along there 
in the beginning : ‘ Whatever He would like 
to have me do.’ It struck me all at once 
that that would be an awfully good motto for 
a fellow to live by ! I’ve been wishing for 
the last five minutes that I could have it for 
my business in this world to be doing ‘ what¬ 
ever He would like to have me do,’ and I ’m 
going to begin right here and now. I ’m tired 
of living on without any aim at all, one way 
or the other. I wish you would pray for me ! ” 

Bert sprang to his feet as Dick sat down. 
At the beginning of the meeting Hattie would 
have giggled and whispered something about 
the “ two prize-speakers being on together 
again,” but even Hattie was a little awed by 
the new turn it was taking. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 103 

Bert made no speech and tried to make 
none. He told them how miserable he had 
been over Jacky’s question, how he had tried 
to make himself believe that he was a pretty 
good fellow after all, and how his very self¬ 
disgust had sent him to the meeting “ for the 
fun of it,” or at least to escape any more self¬ 
questionings at home with his own thoughts 
and his Bible. 

“ And all I ’ve got to say is,” he added 
energetically, “ if Dick is going to start in to 
be a Christian, I ’ll try too from this out. I 
feel as if I should make a pretty poor 
specimen, but the Bible says there’s room 
for all sorts, I believe, to begin with. Just 
count me in with Dick when you ’re pray¬ 
ing ! ” 

So they did, and the meeting broke up at 
last, and even, at last, they all went home, 
though Dick and Bert put the janitor out of 
all patience, and were fairly put out them¬ 
selves to hold an “ overflow meeting ” on the 
sidewalk. 


104 A bunker hill failure 

“ It ’s me ! ” piped a beseeching voice from 
the curbstone as Bert swung oh and started 
homeward. “It’s me!” came the little 
voice again, this time with a sharp accent of 
entreaty. 

Bert stared, with his hands in his pockets. 
It was some instants before he could discern 
in the sorry-looking bundle of rags at his 
feet the little fellow whose innocent question 
had made him so much trouble of mind 
lately. It was Jacky, however, rags and all; 
and how he came by them and in them was a 
puzzle to Bert, for the little scamp was well 
clothed enough whenever he had seen him 
before this. 

“ Lemme go along o’ you ! ” begged the 
sorrowful little voice. 

“With me!” cried Bert in amazement. 
“ What should you be going with me for ? It 
's time to go home to your bed, you monkey ! 
How came you here, anyway—in these duds, 
too ?” 

“ I have n’t any home to go ter ! ” wailed 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


°5 


the child. “ They locked me out when they 
done kicking me. See here ! ” 

He tried to lift his small arm to show a 
half-soaked blood-stain, but it was limp and 
useless. “They ” had done something besides 
kicking him. Bert shuddered, and sat down 
on the stone curb and took him in his arms. 
It was a cool night, but Bert was about as 
cool as a section of the equator. 

“ What has happened to you ?” he cried 
sternly. “And who—happened it? Who 
has hurt your arm ? Is it broken ? ” 

“ Do n’t! ” begged the little fellow with a 
cry of pain. “ It hurts awf’ly. Hit me with 
a poker. Old Suke said she’d murder me, 
and they was a man in there along o’ her 
and the rest of ’em that tried to help her. 
They wanted some money to get drinks, so 
they tried to get my clothes off’n me, and I 
fit. That’s how I got hurt. ” 

“Who’s Suke ? ” cried Bert with his blood 
boiling. 

“ Old woman that takes care o’ me,” said 


106 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

the child with unconscious sarcasm. “ She 
never did so bad before. But she got the 
clothes this time ! ” he cried with a sob of 
pain and grief and loss that went to Bert’s 
heart and seemed to call for vengeance. 
Were such wrongs to go unredressed ? He 
had heard of such things being done to 
children, but it was the first time in his life 
that his heart had burned at the sight of 
them. 

“ Do n’t ye leave me ! ” almost screamed 
the child, as Bert took a quick step out into 
the street to signal a whizzing electric that 
just then bore down upon them. He stepped 
back and stooped down an instant as tenderly 
as if he had been his baby brother, then 
hailed the car with a peremptory “ Hold on, 
there ! ” that made the motorman come to a 
halt six feet from any white post, though 
neither life nor death could have induced 
him if he had not been surprised into 
it. Bert sprang onto the platform with his 
poor little armful, and stayed out there 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


107 

all the way for the fresh air and the elbow- 
room. 

“ Here, keep in your skin ! ” said a young 
fellow gruffly, flinging a shaggy greatcoat 
over Bert and Jacky both, after watching the 
former’s eel-like struggles to get out of his 
own to wrap around Jacky. “ What ails the 
kid? ” 

Bert told him. The boy was “mad” 
enough to suit even Bert’s ideas of fitness. 

“ Keep the coat ! ” he growled as he pulled 
the strap at the getting-off place. “ The 
wind’s in your face for a bit yet. Sixty-nine, 
you say ? I ’ll stop in for it. ” 

The coat smelled of places that Bert had 
seen the inside of once or twice, but not 
often enough to like the memory of. He 
wished he had n’t taken it. By the way, 
what was the fellow’s name ? Bright, to 
ride all that way and never ask ! Never 
mind, he’d watch out for him, and— 

A sudden loosing of the tight little arm 
round his neck, a little dropping forward of 


o8 


A BUNKER II 1 LL FAILURE 


the head on his breast, and a queer, heavy 
feeling of the burden in his arms made him 
start up the hill at a double quick in spite of 
the wind. Jacky had fainted. He knew 
that without waiting to look at his face under 
the lamp-post. The next minute he was in 
at the little side gate and making such a 
clatter at the front piazza door that the whole 
family came to let him in, and luckily mother 
was handy enough to take Jacky before he 
dropped him, which he came a good deal 
nearer doing than he meant to. 


CHAPTER VIII 


UNTO ONE OF THESE LEAST 

“ If thou wouldst walk in light, 

Make other spirits bright.” 

T HEAR a grand thing of thee ! ” was Mr. 

Royce’s hearty greeting next morning 
when Bert appeared. He was early, for he 
had Jacky’s work to do as well as his own, 
but the brisk little man was there before 
him. 

“ It was the one thing lacking ! ” he added, 
with a cordial shake of Bert’s hand as he 
passed him. “ I trembled for thee, with all 
thy building, boy, till I heard that. It’s a 
poor architect that slights the underpinning. 
Culture’s a fine thing, and builds high, but 
it’s a tower o’ Babel when all’s done, and 
the Lord comes down and confounds them 
all together ! ” 

109 


no 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


Bert thanked him, and began to bustle 
about the store at whatever needed doing. 

“Jacky should be here ! ” said Mr. Royce, 
looking up at the clock. “ Leave the things 
alone till he gets round. I shall have to 
have a word with him.” 

Bert told him how and where he had 
found him last night, and the boy’s story. 
The Quaker raged in a truly Christian man¬ 
ner. Bert thought it was a fine sight to see 
a Quaker so angry. 

“The heathen!” he cried, his blue eyes 
seeming to flash tire almost, as he heard the 
tale of Jacky’s wrongs. “ If there’s a law in 
the land”— 

“ My father says it would be hard finding 
any one that laws would touch, though we 
shall advertise in ways that may bring some¬ 
body round. Jacky knows nothing of either 
father or mother. Old Suke was his idea of 
womanly tenderness till last night, I imagine. 
My mother comes out of the room crying 
every five minutes at the grateful things he 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


in 


says to her. Of course the wretches can be 
taken up for common drunkards, and the 
like. But they are not the ones who need 
punishing.” 

Mr. Royce’s face kept its troubled look all 
day, and night found him in the Whitcombs’ 
parlor. He explained that he had come to 
see his little errand boy. 

“No, no relative,” he answered hastily, 
rubbing his dimmed glasses till it seemed as 
if he were going to wear a hole in them. 
“ Though he looks enough like kin of mine 
to belong to me ! ” he muttered half to him¬ 
self. “ That is how I came to take him into 
the store in the first place. He was playing 
marbles with a flock of boys, and for the look 
on his face I could have hugged him! It 
was my dead Lucy’s look—eyes and mouth 
and the yellow hair, all curling up at the 
ends where it was long enough. Strange 
how the Lord lends a family look out o’ the 
family, now and then ! ” 

“ Where did your sister die ? ” asked Bert’s 


112 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


mother, politely pursuing the subject in 
which he seemed to be interested. 

“ In New York, somewhere, they say,” 
answered the Quaker sadly. “We never 
knew exactly. There was trouble, thee 
must know! ” he added in an embarrassed 
tone. “ We never knew exactly. There 
was a scamp of a husband, and the property 
disappeared, and she was left in want, as we 
learned afterward. It was a sad story. 
There was a boy, but he died with her.” 

“ Do n’t speak of it any more ! ” said Mrs. 
Whitcomb, repenting that she had asked any 
questions. “ I don’t wonder that the child 
appealed to you. Will you step in this way 
and look at him ? ” 

Jacky had not travelled so far out of child¬ 
hood yet that sleep did not restore to him all 
its graces. He was a pitiful sight, even in 
his fresh white nightclothes, to any kind- 
hearted person, for there were livid bruises 
here and there to be seen, and one small arm 
was bandaged. But they were not prepared 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE II3 

for the effect of the vision on Mr. Royce. 
He stood, hat in hand, by the bedside, as if 
drinking in the sweet resemblance that he 
fancied, till the tears began to trickle down 
his brown face, and his limbs seemed to 
tremble under him. 

Mrs. Whitcomb gently rolled forward a 
big easy-chair without speaking. He sank 
into it, without seeming to notice that he 
did so, still keeping his eyes fixed on the 
bed, till the sleeper turned and moaned and 
moved uneasily. That broke the spell. The 
visitor whipped a couple of fine oranges out of 
his pocket and pushed them under the pillow 
in a way to make Jacky’s head lie as uneasy 
as any head that ever had a crown on. Then 
he tiptoed frantically out of the room, man¬ 
aging to upset a little oval light stand with 
a rose jar on it, a plush-covered rocker of 
the “ crawler” variety, which had come soci¬ 
ably near the bed on its travels, and at the 
threshold extracted an agonizing shriek from 

Doddie’s rubber doll with a “squeaker” in 
8 


II4 A BTINKER HILL FAILURE 

her stomach. The soft feel of the rubber 
under his foot, like a squirming kitten, and 
the howl that followed were too much for 
his bachelor nerves, and he fled the 
house, not even waiting for his hat, 
which Bert picked up from the hall table, 
and ran hastily down the walk to give 
him. 

“What if it should be?” cried Bert ex¬ 
citedly, coming back panting and laughing. 
“ Stranger things have been heard of ! 
What if ‘ Lucy ’ had left children ? What 
if he had lived all these years alone and 
childless to come by a real live nephew at 
last in this romantic way ! ” 

“ Of course it might be ! ” said mother, 
“ but not very likely. ‘T would be exactly 
my way of arranging it ! ” 

“ Might be ! But look at it !” cried Bert 
enthusiastically. “ What’s more likely than 
having him get back here somehow to the 
town he belonged to by good rights ? That 
’s the way they always do in the books. And 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 115 

then the old father or uncle or something 
discovers ’em, and”— 

“They live happy ever after!” laughed 
father, enjoying the fun of knocking down 
Bert’s sentimental card house. “ You ’ll find 
that ‘ Might-be ’ is a good many blocks away 
from the street of ‘ Is ’ ! ” 

A bounce from Jacky’s corner of the room 
made them all turn toward him. One of the 
big oranges came bobbing and bouncing over 
the floor at them. The next followed suit, 
and Jacky stared after them weakly and felt 
his yellow head with his well hand, as if 
wondering whether by any possibility that 
could have been one of them. 

“ Might be who ? ” he demanded, picking 
up the last words he had heard or taken the 
sense of. 

“ The man in the moon,” said Bert in con¬ 
sternation, frowning and nodding fiercely at 
the others. “You act so ‘ luny ’ sometimes, 
we did n’t know but you might belong toThe 
family, do n’t you know ? ” 


n6 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

Jacky looked at him out of humorous blue 
cracks of eyes, in no wise taken in by this 
tactful representation of the matter. 

“ Wonder where you expect to die when 
you go ter ! ” he remarked blandly, adding, 
as he turned over to go to sleep again, 
“ Do n’t care nothin’ ’bout knowin’. Some¬ 
thin’ ’bout old man Royce ’n’ me. I ’ll ask 
him next time I see him ! ” 

There was a ring at the front door, and 
Polly and Doddie and Phil went to open it. 

“ Do send those youngsters to bed, 
mother ! ” said Bert, trying vainly to head 
them off in the entry. “ They tag that poor 
girl’s heels from morning till night. Mary’s 
little lamb was just nobody compared to 
’em.” 

The next minute Bert saw something 
through the crack that sent him “ tagging ” 
too. 

“ Overcoat here?” a rough-looking young 
fellow was saying. “ Could n’t get round 
before on account o’ the”— 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE nj 

Bert pulled him in and made him sit down 
by the big base-burner to get warm, while 
he went and got the coat, which his mother 
had not seemed to care to hang with the ones 
that belonged to her “ men folks.” 

“ How’s the little chap ? ” began the young 
fellow, taking it. 

“ Sleeps most all day so far,” said Bert, 
looking at the boy, who was that, evidently, 
though a great, loose-jointed, over-grown 
one. He was dark-faced and shock-headed, 
and not exactly an ornament to society, but 
with a “ good ” look to him, for all that, which 
made Bert stop wondering why he had lent 
him his overcoat. “You ought to see him, 
really. Wait. I 11 speak to my mother.” 

This time Jacky stayed asleep and showed 
the blue veins in his eyelids instead of the 
scampish look under them. Somehow he 
did n’t look natural even to Bert, and their 
visitor looked at him in a perplexed, uncer¬ 
tain way that puzzled them, not knowing 
that he had reason for recognizing the 


118 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

child under any aspect. All at once his face 
brightened. 

“ Where ’d you pick up that kid?” he 
asked, stooping lower over him an instant. 
“ Do n’t look so sassy when he’s asleep, but 
I guess it’s partly the white riggin’ all ’round 
him, an’ so forth ! Ain’t used to much white 
things where he stays ! ” 

“ Why, do you know him?” said mother 
breathlessly. 

“ Do you know him ?” came in Bert like 
an echo. 

“ Know him !” he repeated, laughing and 
looking from one to the other. Their faces 
sobered him, and made him a little more 
reserved too, and he answered lightly, “ Oh, 
I ’ve seen him ! Everybody’s seen him. 
Lived down Tanner Street way with some 
old woman, or other, that pretended to look 
after him—did, well enough, when she was 
sober ! ” 

“Do you know the house?” said Bert, 
starting up with determination. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE ri9 

“ Where he used to live ? Oh, yes, I 
know it. Good long stretch from here. 
Sweet ’n’ lovely neighborhood.” 

“ Come on ! ” said Bert, making a long, 
catlike leap for the door, and snatching hat 
and coat from their pegs, while the other boy 
picked up his own from force of example. 
“ You just show me that house, and we ’ll 
see if we can’t knock a little sense into some¬ 
body ! ” 

Perhaps even that visionary undertaking 
might have succeeded if there had been 
“anybody” at the house at Tanner Street. 
But the two upper end rooms they looked 
into were empty as a last year’s bird’s nest, 
and nobody knew where the old (jail) birds 
had flitted to. After a few keen, casual 
questions they were obliged to give up the 
search in that quarter, and Bert went home 
with his hopes considerably dashed as to 
Jacky’s future. He did find out the other 
boy’s name this time, though, and that was 
something. 


120 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“ Wes. Kittredge ! ” called the young fel¬ 
low, who moved quickly, and was halfway 
down the hill by this time. 

“ ‘ Weskit,’ eh ?” laughed Bert to himself 
as he went on. “ Wesley, I suppose, or 
Weston. Wonder which ?” 

Nothing more happened to throw light on 
Jacky’s identity, but it was many weeks be¬ 
fore imagination ceased to be on tiptoe, or 
eyes to scan the papers in search of adver¬ 
tisements to somebody’s advantage. Nothing 
came of all their looking, and they settled 
down at last to caring for Jacky as one of the 
Lord’s little ones, and were quite satisfied 
not to know of any other kinship. 

Not so Mr. Royce. The idea of a possible 
“ blood relation ” had entered his lonely heart, 
and whether from willful shutting of his eyes 
to the probabilities of the case or not, he 
would not admit any that bore against his 
fancy. Every scrap of evidence was hunted 
down to build his theory, and though most 
of it went against him, he was mercifully 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


121 


helped to find an item or two that he wrested 
to his purpose. A boy had been born. 
There was no proof that he had ever died. 
It was his Jacky ! His very face was proof 
enough. 

This was the flawless chain of logic by 
which he established his right to Jacky, and 
no one had the heart to point out a weak 
link, when they saw how his whole heart 
went out to the boy. It was good to see 
him bending over the bed whenever he hap¬ 
pened in at night, to drop some toy or tidbit 
in his hands, that had good right to be always 
expecting something, inasmuch as they never 
were disappointed. It was good to see him 
sitting in the big arm-chair, nursing his ivory 
cane-top and dreaming dreams of himself 
and Jacky in the brown house on the hilltop 
to which he planned removing his “ nephew ” 
as soon as he was well enough to be taken 
“home.” The old housekeeper already had 
a room made ready for him. Were not all 
the rooms ready for him ? 


122 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


But Jacky did not get better very fast. 

“ The freckles are all going, mother ! ” 
said Phil despairingly, as if that were one of 
the last stages, and indeed their disappear¬ 
ance gave a frightful transparency to the 
small face, and showed the blue veins of the 
temples in a way to make one’s heart ache, 
if he had eyes like Phil’s to see anything. 


CHAPTER IX 
jacky’s wheel 

“ I love to see Christians walking in the sunshine.” 

—Mrs. Prentiss. 

TT ’S spring by now, ain’t it ? ” asked Jacky 
X languidly, one bright April morning, 
when the windows were open upstairs and 
down, and outer doors all swinging to get the 
winter put of the house, which was the only 
place where there was any. The trees were 
thinking of summer styles, and the hills had 
put off their winter bonnets. Bird songs 
and flower scents came floating in with their 
own messages to Jacky. He understood 
some of them. 

“Yes, dear,” said mother, as she made 
him call her. 

If he had never had it before, he should 

123 


124 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


now have his fill of mothering. “ Did n’t 
you see the violets Phil brought you ? ” 

“ They’re jolly sweet! ” he said appreci¬ 
atively, taking a long, long sniff. “ I know 
a place where they grow. Ground looks 
like a big blue bedquilt ! ” fingering the 
pretty blue spread that mother had brought 
down from the best bed to please him. He 
did n’t pretend to lie abed any more daytimes, 
but she noticed that he often dropped down 
on it in a way that no well boy ever thought 
of doing. That and the freckles and one or 
two other bad signs had put her out of heart 
a good deal lately ; much more than she 
would have confessed to any one else in the 
household. 

“ I’d like to get you a hatful ! ” said 
Jacky. 

“ If it was n’t for walking on your feet in 
the damp ! ” said mother, doubtfully, looking 
out of the window at the rain-soaked, spongy 
ground, as if perhaps some new way of loco¬ 
motion might be invented. “ Have to wait, 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 125 

Jacky, unless you can do as I heard you and 
Phil talking about the other day—walk on 
your head, I believe your plan was ! ” 

Jacky did n’t laugh. He was feeling very 
pathetic to-day. He had a lump in his throat 
that Phil would have known by its right 
name of homesickness. All outdoors had 
been home to him, and he was missing 
it. 

“ Are there any violets up in heaven ? ” 
was his next question. These long weeks 
with mother sitting by had not passed with¬ 
out some sweet knowledge finding its way 
into the neglected little heart, and it had 
been good soil, ready to take in the precious 
seed and help it grow. 

“ I do n’t know, dear !” said mother, hesi¬ 
tating. “ I am sure of one thing. When I 
get there, I shall have what I want there, 
not what I wanted here. Shall I sing you 
a little verse that helps me when I get to 
thinking of those things ? ” 

Jacky nodded. He was holding on to that 


126 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


lump in his throat with both hands, but it 
kept getting bigger and bigger. 

“ My knowledge of that life is small ; 

The eye of faith is dim ; 

But ’t is enough that Christ knows all, 

And I shall be with him.” 

Mother’s voice was very sweet and 
motherly, and the echoes of the quiet room 
seemed to be saying the last line over and 
over. It seemed to be quite a long time that 
he lay still thinking about it after his fash¬ 
ion. She looked up at last from her sewing 
to see if he had fallen asleep, as he often did 
when they talked together. But he was 
wide awake, staring in a troubled way at the 
white wall opposite. He was only nine 
years old, and the eye of faith was dim. All 
at once he burst out sobbing. 

“ Seem’s if they might be sure to have 
some mothers there—for little chaps like 
me !” 

“ They do, my darling!” cried mother, 
dropping her work swiftly and taking the 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 127 

little fellow in her arms to rock him as if 
he had been a baby. “ And better than 
mothers ! ‘ As one whom his mother com- 

forteth, so will I comfort you ! ’ God says 
that, Jacky ! Cuddle up close to me, dear, 
and I ’ll sing about it.” 

It was n’t long before he was sound asleep, 
and she tucked him up on the blue bed- 
quilt, with the pink-striped afghan over him, 
and went out and shut the door softly, so 
that nothing should disturb him. 

“Aunt Marian, that boy’s got to have a 
bicycle ! ” 

Polly, down by the crack of the door, had 
been listening for the last fifteen minutes, 
and now she bobbed up from her knees so 
suddenly that her aunt was considerably up¬ 
set in her mind, to say nothing about any¬ 
thing less ethereal. Polly sprang to catch 
her with remorseful apologies. Perhaps the 
tear-stained face was the best one. 

“ It’s a shame to scare you so, Aunt 
Marian ! I thought you saw me. You see 


I2 g A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

I was trying to be still so as not to scare 
him ! The only thing that’s going to keep 
him from going to heaven is a wheel ! It’s 
beg, borrow, or—something ! For of course 
there’s no money to buy one.” 

“ No money,” acquiesced Aunt Marian 
decisively. Nobody talked poverty, but 
silver was not much more “ accounted of ” 
in the family than it was in the days of King 
Solomon, though for a different reason ; and 
as for gold and greenbacks, no one but father 
ever saw any, and he had to reluctantly dole 
them out for the household expenses. 

“ All the same I 11 have a wheel ! ” said 
Polly pluckily. “ You see ! ” 

When Polly spoke in that tone people 
thought of Wellington at Waterloo, Grant, 
Napoleon, or some other famous fighter. 

“ She 11 have it, mother !” said Bert, nod¬ 
ding knowingly, as if it were a foregone con¬ 
clusion. He had just come through the 
door in time to hear Polly’s wish and will in 
the matter. “ There is n’t an inch of give 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


129 


in Polly’s whole make-up—give in, give up, 
or give out ! In my mind’s eye I see her 
proudly waving that wheel ”— 

“It’s Jacky that will be waving!” in¬ 
terrupted Polly. “ Won’t he have a time 
learning ! I must see that he does n’t get 
any falls to amount to anything, for his arm 
is n’t very strong yet, and besides he’s too 
weak to be shaken up much.” 

“Well, that’s what I call ‘counting 
chickens ’ with a vengeance ! ” said Aunt 
Easter, coming downstairs and joining the 
family conclave. “Where do you expect 
and perpose to lay hands on this nice little 
hundred-dollar bicycle ? They hang round 
so thick this warm spring weather—on all 
the bushes ! ” 

“ I won’t tell you ! ” said Polly, springing 
up gayly. “ I won’t tell a soul of you ! But 
four days from now—by the end of the week 
—I ’ll show you ! ” 

“ Hollo, Polly ! ” said Bert as she came out 

in the woodshed after dinner to watch him 
9 


I3 o A BUNKER IIILL FAILURE 

split kindlings. He was apt to take five 
or ten minutes of his noon hour for it, 
so as not to break into good solid night 
time. 

“ If you ’ll never, never tell! ” began Polly 
confidentially, sitting down in the sawhorse, 
which he was all through with. 

“ Thought you looked confidential. Go 
ahead ! ” 

“ You have n’t said you won’t yet.” 

“Won’t what?” 

“ Why—go and leak it all out everywhere, 
so that somebody will rise up in their wrath 
and say I sha’n’t do it.” 

“ Did I ever ? ” 

“ Nobody knows what a gabbling, gossipy 
boy will do ! ” said Polly, her eyes twinkling. 
She had got a little bit behind him to be out 
of range of the flying sticks, so he could n’t 
see the laugh in her eyes, and her voice was 
provoking enough. The indignation in his 
face and the uplifted hatchet in his hand, 
as he turned round sharply, made a rather 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 131 

threatening picture, but Polly burst into a 
laugh and he subsided. 

“ I promise you that I won’t tell a word 
you’ve told me ! ” he said grimly, turning 
back to his chopping-block. 

“Well, it-’s this. I heard you saying 
something the other day when Tom Pickles 
came to see you ! ” 

“ That ’s strange,” said Bert. “ Usually 
stick on a postage stamp over my mouth so 
such a thing sha’ n’t happen.” 

“You know what I mean, Bert ! And’t 
was after Tom had gone, anyway. You said 
that his father sold bicycles.” 

“Made’em,” corrected Bert. “He’s 
started a factory. Trying to work a new 
patent he ’s invented. Make money, I guess, 
as soon as they get fairly on the market.” 

“ Yes, and you said, Bert ” — 

Polly was getting enthusiastic and eager, 
and now it was Bert’s turn to torment her. 

“ Have to go now,” he said, looking at his 
watch. “ Hear the rest to-night. By-by ! ” 


132 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

He started off for the wood-box with his 
arms piled up, but Polly scraped up an arm¬ 
ful too and trotted after him. 

“ Do n’t be mean and unladylike, now ! 
You said he’d give a commission if anybody 
would sell one of his old bicycles ! ” 

“ Brand-new machine if you sell four for 
him,” said Bert, looking round. “ Pretty 
good, I think, that is ! They ’re a hundred- 
dollar wheel, so a man really makes twenty- 
five dollars on a sale. Do n’t cost him that, 
of course, but the extra machine could be 
turned for that. A man might do pretty 
well at it if he found customers.” 

“ So might a woman, or a girl ! ” said Polly 
triumphantly. She had found out all she 
wanted to know. She wanted to be sure of 
her facts before she went ahead any more. 

It was vacation at the “ Normal,” but 
school opened next week, and Polly was 
getting a good deal of extra sewing and 
mending and washing and ironing done 
ahead, among her other preparations. When 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE I33 

school was on the track it had the right of 
way, and other occupations made way for it. 

The Whitcomb household was cooper¬ 
ative. For one thing there wasn’t room 
enough for a “ girl ” in the house. For two 
things, lately, there was n’t enough money. 
But everybody enjoyed it better as it was. 
Mother, of course, was presiding officer, but 
Aunt Easter really did wonders as working 
housekeeper, and all the children, from 
Doddie up, had their tasks and regular share 
of the common welfare to look after. Dod¬ 
die swept the stairs down, or up, for she 
usually began by sitting down on the floor 
with her little brush and dustpan and sweep¬ 
ing the lower step first. Of course when 
mother found her she had to begin at the 
other end, but she did it at last, or thought 
she did, which was the main thing, and as 
mother said hopefully, she was learning. 
Nobody was ever allowed to let her see them 
“ do the stairs ” over after her. It was her 
one little special responsibility. 


T ,. A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

T 3 4 

Phil and Bert each had his respective 
field of labor, and when Polly came she had 
put her little finger into everybody’s pie till 
mother said she should n’t. Thereupon 
Polly demanded her “ special,” and was 
given it. 

“I won’t be just a common boarder!” 
said Polly scornfully. “Do you s’pose I 
want to be shut up in the parlor and one 
bedroom and be called ‘Miss Whitcomb’ 
just because I pay a few dollars a week to 
live here ? I’m going to dust that parlor, 
and make the beds in all the bedrooms ; and 
maybe I ’ll do some more things! Sha’n’t 
I, Aunt Marian ? ” 

“ She’s got to make me cookies, anyway,” 
said Phil positively. 

So among other jobs she had a big cooky 
jar to fill before starting out on her bicycle 
business. Phil and Doddie solemnly prom¬ 
ised to be economical and careful, and in¬ 
deed to use them only to stave off' the pangs 
of hunger, which they felt to such an extent 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 135 

that moment that Phil could n’t resist filling 
his new trousers pockets (to which he had 
lately been promoted), and Doddie consoled 
herself for his scorn of petticoats by demon¬ 
strating that even her tiny skirt could hold 
more cookies than all his manly pockets put 
together. 

Polly saw it all out of the corner of her 
eye as she went upstairs, but she only 
laughed and told them “ All right,” only to 
remember that they would n’t get any more 
“ till next whole week from now.” 

On the landing, Jacky was flattening his 
nose against the little square window drearily. 
He had waked up, and though he felt better 
in his body for the nice long nap he had 
had, the outdoor longing was still strong 
upon him, and his little thin face had a most 
un-Christian length, which Polly set herself 
at once to shorten. 

“ Do n’t you wish you had a bicycle, 
Jacky ?” she said, dropping down on the stair 
to get on a level with him and the window. 


i 3 6 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“ Wisht I could knock him off ’n his ’n ! ” 
said Jacky, pointing to a swift, shining vision 
that flashed at that instant past the house. 

“ You shall, Jacky! ” said Polly answer¬ 
ing her own proposition rather than his, it is 
to be hoped, though she forgot to say so. 
“ You drag through this week somehow, and 
I 11 scurry round and get a bicycle. See 
if I do n’t. Then we 11 go off somewhere 
where folks can 1 see us, and you shall 
learn how to ride it, and then, sir !” 

“ Me learn to ride !” cried Jacky in scorn, 
which Polly mistook for cowardice. 

“ I won’t let anything hurt you ! ” she said 
soothingly. “Not a thing! You’ll learn 
fast—boys always do. Perhaps you won’t 
get any falls to speak of.” 

“ I could ride before you was thought 
of! ” said Jacky in unmitigated contempt 
not unmixed with triumph. 

“Where?” demanded Polly, laughing. 

“ Down in front the hotels—anywhere ! ” 
said Jacky nonchalantly. “ Fellows leave 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 137 

’em when they go in t’ the postoffice or for 
a cigar. Great fun to streak off ’fore they 
got out again.” 

“ Why, Jacky ! Suppose they’d caught 
you ? And why did n’t they catch you ? 
You had to bring it back or something ? 
What did they do to you ? ” 

“Said they’d skin me alive next time!” 
said Jacky coolly. “ Would then if I’d ’a’ 
waited. But I used to be most remarkable 
busy those mornin’s.” 


CHAPTER X 


AN INTERVIEW 


“ Fortune befriends the bold.” 


—Dry den. 



WAY down on Southbridge Street Bert 


and Polly came face to face. At least, 
Polly and the white horse were face to face, 
and Bert was not far away, though higher, 
being perched up high on the spring seat 
with a cartful of bundles to deliver. 

“ Whoa! ” he cried peremptorily, and 
Polly whoa-ed. 

“ Where in the sun, moon, and stars are 
you going ? ” he demanded. 

“ To see Mr. Pickles,” said Polly, seeing 
she was discovered. She had once or twice 
tried to keep things from Bert, and with 
disastrous consequences. 

“You do n’t dare !” 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 139 

“ Say that again ! ” said Polly, sparkling. 
“ I love a real good ‘ stump ’ ! ” 

“ Honest, now, Polly! It is n’t nice, is 
it? I ’ve heard he’s crusty enough, too. 
At least Tom says so.” 

“ Should think he would be—to Tom!” 
said Polly scornfully. “ Such a born shirk ! 
I would n’t be Tom’s sister for anything ; it 
would turn me into a perfect Xanthippe ! ” 

“ Well, but his father. Are you sure you 
dare to try him ? ” 

“I didn’t till I met you ! ” retorted Polly, 
starting on with a firm tap, tap of her little 
boot heels on the tar sidewalk. “ I’d ‘ beard 
the lion in his den ’ now, before I’d let you 
give me a ‘ dare’ like that and I not take it ! ” 

On she went with her head held high 
and her cheeks getting redder and redder, 
as they always did when she felt scared 
or nervous. 

Bert gave one look at her and whipped 
up to get about his own business with a 
sudden feeling that he had received consid- 


140 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


erable “ new light ” concerning women and 
the way to head off their little enterprises. 
With all his faith in Polly’s grit, as he called 
it, he had really not believed her capable of 
carrying out her little scheme of the morn¬ 
ing, and had not given it a thought since 
starting off at noontime. But there she was, 
on the very steps of Mr. Pickles’ house and 
ringing his doorbell, as he assured himself 
by a glance over his shoulder. But she was 
n’t, as he might have known if he had not 
that instant turned a rattling corner where 
he needed to give his whole mind to his 
packages to keep them from too miscella¬ 
neous distribution. 

“Timed herself pretty well for him ! ” was 
his comment as the mill whistles all gave 
their six-o’clock warning. “ Catch him at 
home, probably, and the only time in the 
day that she would do it.” 

Polly put her hand pluckily on that big, 
round, silver bell-pull and —ran ! She could 
n’t help it. All at once her knees smote to- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE l ^ 1 

gether, her heart grew as big as a pineapple, 
the little speech she had made up to say 
to him forsook her, and, to crown all, right 
round the corner of the house—the right 
corner—she caught a glimpse of Tom Pickles, 
Jr., walking leisurely with his head down, 
stripping a long willow wand such as the 
children makes whistles with. 

If the story can wait, Tom may stand up 
a minute for his photograph. He was a 
dapper little yellow-haired, light-eyed fellow, 
not very tall but so slim that he seemed so, 
and with a graceful set of his girlish 
shoulders that went well with his manners. 
The old ladies always spoke of Tom’s man¬ 
ners. He had such a lovely way of pick¬ 
ing up their knitting-needles when they 
dropped them, and the smile accompanying 
their return was worth angling for. He 
would chase a croquet ball across the street 
for his own sister or his mother and never 
scowl when he brought it back to bounds 
again ; and the way in which he doffed his 


142 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


cap to the dustiest traveler asking the way 
to the next town, and the apologetic tone in 
which he told the number of miles to it 
seemed to shorten the road and “ lay the 
dust” as he smiled and left him. For all 
that, Polly did not like him. She thought 
he was untrue, and said so. 

“ I won’t let him see me! ” she said, 
scudding round the other corner of the house 
to avoid him. He had some new-stamped 
letters sticking out of his pocket, so she knew 
he was going to the postoffice. When she 
heard the gate click, she meant to go back. 

Tom’s head was down, but he did see her. 
He knew her by sight, and Bert had explained 
to him that she was a bashful little thing, 
“ kind o’ scared at boys and men folks. ” 
He thought that was the best way to get over 
her abrupt departures whenever Tom came 
to see him. So, being a kind-hearted fellow, 
and not wishing to embarrass her, he also 
turned quickly on his heel and went rapidly 
back around the house toward the left, with- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE i 43 

out noticing that she had left her post by the 
doorbell. As a result, Polly, walking on 
around that way, with her head over her 
shoulder, to watch the gate, was startled to 
hear a sudden chuckle right in front of her, 
and turned back to see Tom with a face red 
to the roots of his hair and alive with fun at 
the comical situation. 

“I—I wanted to see your father,” stam¬ 
mered Polly, bound to say something to 
explain herself. 

“ Certainly,” said Tom, trying to make the 
grin over into a smile, and taking it as a 
matter of course that ladies should come 
round to the side door by the carriage drive 
when they came on business. “ Let me ring 
for you ! Just saw him drive up, did n’t 
you ?” 

That was Tom all over; ready-witted, 
ready-worded, with just the right thing to 
say to take away the awkwardness, and ap¬ 
parently not the ghost of a suspicion what she 
really was around there for. For a moment 


144 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

she felt toward him exactly as the old ladies 
did when he picked their balls up, and in 
that minute of relenting let him usher her 
into the sitting-room, where a tumbled work- 
basket and a cat on a cushion and some 
children’s playthings made the place seem 
much less oppressive than the parlor would 
have been. Through the crack of the door 
she could see the maid bringing in the supper 
things, and she also saw a man out there 
reading his newspaper, whom she rightly 
guessed to be Mr. Pickles. Tom went 
through the door without closing the crack, 
and she saw him go up and speak to his 
father. 

“ A little girl ? What does she want ? ” 

Polly could not hear the answer, but she 
saw him start up, paper in hand, and come 
in to meet her, so she got up nervously, too, 
to tell her errand. Polly was used to having 
people kind to her. If it had not been for 
Bert, she would not have thought of being 
afraid of this business. She never would be 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


J 4S 


very imposing, not even when she got to be 
a real Normal schoolma’am ; and now, with 
her brown, curly head, and her little short 
dress to her boot-tops, and her round, chubby 
face, she was just the kind of girl that good 
fatherly men say “ my dear ” to, and let waste 
their time by the ten minutes in office hours. 
Tom did n’t know that his father was that 
kind of a man. Perhaps if he had been as 
honest and straightforward as little Polly, he 
would have found out. 

“ J came to see if you would let me earn 
a bicycle,” said Polly, looking up at him. 
She had to say it that way or no way. 

“ Earn a bicycle, my dear ! ” repeated the 
gentleman, taking an elbow chair. “ Buy 
one, you mean, perhaps ?” 

“ No ; earn it. I have n’t got any money. 
No ; not any,” she said, shaking her head as 
he leaned forward with a hand capping each 
knee and smiling a little. She thought his 
smile meant that perhaps she had a little to 
begin with, and she might get it on instal- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


146 

merits or something, as she had heard of 
people doing. It was an encouraging smile 
and she was sorry to have to discourage it. 

“ Bert said—Bert is my cousin, you know— 
Bert Whitcomb—he said that Tom said— 
Tom is your boy, you know—Tom Pickles ! ” 
— (Mr. Pickles, nodded, laughing ; his little 
visitor had such a very odd way of introduc¬ 
ing her business),—“ that—that, if anybody 
would sell four bicycles for you, you would 
give them one free without any money ! ” 

“ Tom said that, did he ? ” 

“ Bert says so.” 

“ Twenty-five per cent commission, eh ! 
That’s pretty good profit ! I said that to 
him, or something like it, but I don’t know 
as I meant to advertise it too extensively as 
general terms to agents. What do you want 
of a bicycle ? ” 

“ Jacky wants one.” 

“ Jacky ! Who is Jacky ? ” 

Polly’s only guile was her simplicity. She 
made no effort to be pathetic or make a good 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 14 j 

story or anything of the sort. She merely 
put her listener in possession of the facts as 
they lay in her own mind, and let them tell 
their own story. The man of business seemed 
to find them rather touching, without any 
embellishment. 

“ Um! um !” he said, looking sharply at 
her. “ No father, no mother, no anything 
really belonging to him ? And you folks took 
him in and looked after him all this time, 
you say ? What ’d they do it for ? for the 
Lord’s sake ? ” 

“ Well,” said Polly merrily, but looking up 
at him with eyes that were very moist and 
shiny, “ I think the really, truly reason was 
just what you said— ‘ for the Lord's sake,' 
They would n’t say so to everybody, but I 
know that was just it. They ’re that—kind 
of folks ! ” 

“ Well, well ! ” said Mr. Pickles, looking 
at her as if she were a photogravure, and he 
had been trying to decide whether she had 
been “ done by the new process.” 


148 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

Polly leaned back serenely and waited. 
She felt quite at her ease with Mr. Pickles. 

“ Supper ready ? ” he called suddenly over 
his shoulder. 

“Yes, all ready, father!” called Tom’s 
sister, stepping to the door. 

“ Come, my dear,” said he, as if she were 
an invited guest and he had only been inter- 
taining her till the meal was ready. “ Susie, 
take her hat and things, and all come out. 
Do n’t you know her ? Why, now, I am well 
acquainted with her ! What is your name, 
by the way ? ” 

“ Polly,” she answered demurely, speaking 
to him but looking at Susie. 

“ To be sure,—Polly ! Susie, this is Polly. 
Polly, this is Susie. Do you think you know 
each other well enough now to eat supper 
together ? ” 

The two girls laughed, and went out with 
arms around each other’s waists. Susie was 
two years younger than Polly, but taller, and 
fourteen and sixteen go well together. There 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


149 


was n’t any mother, which fact made Polly 
look with kinder eyes on graceful, graceless 
Tom at his end of the'table, and drew the 
two girls nearer together in the sympathy of 
their common orphanage. Susie looked very 
slim and forlorn and young in her new black 
frock, and Polly kept wishing all supper 
time that she had an excuse to go round and 
kiss her or something. 

“ Can you ride a bicycle ? ” asked Mr. 
Pickles when they were through supper and 
out on the piazza. 

“ No, sir; but Jacky can,” said Polly, 
keeping to the point. 

“ And you say he’s about nine years old ? ” 

“Yes, sir; about nine, I think. Are you 
—going to let me sell enough to get him 
one ? ” she asked, looking nervous but hope¬ 
ful. “You look so.” 

“ That ought to clinch the bargain,” he 
laughed, turning oh to speak to Tom, who 
was lounging at a distance. “ I do n’t think 
we ’ll have you earn Jacky’s bicycle,” he 


j 5 o A BUNKER IIILL FAILURE 

added, while Tom went off on an errand 
somewhere. “ Sit down and talk to me 
awhile till Tom gets back. I ’ve sent him 
for one for you to look at.” 

Presently Polly spied him returning, push¬ 
ing the daintiest little wheel, all new and 
shining. She could n’t help a little gasp of 
delight, and Mr. Pickles, who was watching 
her, would not have helped it. 

“How shall I pay for it?” she asked in 
her point-blank way, facing him and coming 
straight to business. 

“ You need n’t pay,” he answered as 
straightforwardly. “ I give it to you—or to 
him—whichever way you like to call it. 
When you want one for yourself, one of 
these days, perhaps we will have another 
arrangement.” 

“ You ’re awfully good ! ” said Polly, after 
as much as a minute, during which she had 
been trying to think whether there was 
anything wrong or improper or “begging” 
about her way of getting it. “ Did I seem 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE I5I 

—to ask—you for it ? What do you do it 
for ? ” 

The answer came as quick as a flash :— 

“ For the Lord's sake ! ” 

Just then Bert turned in at the gate, look¬ 
ing for her. And it was Bert after all, and not 
Tom, who, an hour afterward, pushed home 
Jacky’s bicycle. 


CHAPTER XI 


SMALL BEGINNINGS 


“ Are you in earnest ? Seize this very minute ! 
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it! ” 


E have met the enemy, and we are 



v * their’n ! 1 ” said Bert laughingly, as 
he trundled the “ machine ” up the front 
steps, and mother and father and Aunt 
Easter, and everybody but Jacky and Doddie, 
who were put to bed about the same time, 
came out to see and hear the story. Mr. 
Royce came by and listened, leaning on the 


gate. 


“The house will get a blessing for it, like 
the house of Obed-edom,” was his comment, 
meaning Mr. Pickles’ house. 

“ I did n’t believe she’d have the grit to 
do it ! ” said Bert admiringly, for the fortieth 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


x 53 


time since he had laid hands on the pretty 
thing. 

“ I did n’t believe she’d have the grace to 
get it ! ” said Aunt Easter, who seemed 
almost equally impressed with Polly’s spirit 
of enterprise and the success that crowned 
it. “ She went off as easy as old Tilly, as if 
all you had to do any day after the dishes 
were washed was to go up and ring a door¬ 
bell, and tell ’em you’ve come for any ’varsal 
thing you happen to be wanting.” 

“ Oh, I did n’t feel one bit like that, Aunt 
Easter!” said Polly earnestly. “I’ll tell 
you just what my plan was —now ! And 
I’m going to keep right on planning it. I 
know I can do it. I’m going to sell bicycles 
to the Normal girls. They’re all get¬ 
ting ’em.” 

Half a day before there would have been 
protests and wet blankets. Now success had 
made people respectful. 

“ Just perfectly wild over them ! ” she re¬ 
peated. “And if people will have bicycles, 


154 A bunker hill failure 

and have money to pay for them, and I 
know who wants the money and makes the 
bicycles, there is n’t any reason why I 
should n’t get some money for telling what 
I know, and I’m a-going to! ” 

“ You’ve got an idea, there ! ” said father 
thoughtfully. “ I see them riding by— 
dozens of them—every day.” 

“ And dozens more are waiting for some¬ 
thing to ride on!” said Bert, striking in. 
“ Polly is perfectly correct ! I ’ll indorse 
her ! And what’s more, my friends, I want 
to quietly inform you that I think, in dis¬ 
covering Mr. Pickles in the way she has, 
she has paved my way to fame and fortune! ” 
“Don’t be too sanguine!” said father, 
while Mr. Royce listened with interest, 
wondering what scheme threatened to rob 
him of a good clerk. 

“ Polly went off like the queen of Sheba, 
before the half had been told her. I had a 
talk with Mr. Pickles myself, to-night, and 
he’s anxious to get his new machine ad- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


*55 


vertised round here. He says he ’ll give me 
all the hundred-dollar machines I want for 
seventy-five dollars, till further notice. I 
get a good big cash commission—and you 
just make up your mind I do get it. As 
Polly says, ‘You see ? ’ ” 

“ If you know anybody that wants one ! ” 
said mother hesitatingly. 

“I know two fellows now,” said Bert 
confidently. “Got their money all ready. 
And one machine will sell another. I ’ll 
keep my eyes open. College do n’t look 
quite so far off as it did, father ! It’s some¬ 
thing I can keep right on doing in college. 
I’m going right off now, to see one of those 
two I spoke of.” 

Both those two were out. Bert did not 
sell any bicycles that night. Aunt Easter 
said it was a bad omen. 

“ Do n’t you worry about omens,” said 
Polly, following him out into the kitchen to 
help him hang up his wet coat over the fire. 
It had “ turned to rain ” since he went out, 


156 a bunker hill failure 

and he felt damp and discouraged. “ Won’t 
any omens dig graves for any of my hopes ! 
I do n’t care a fiddle for omens ! ” 

In spite of himself, Bert felt insensibly 
cheered up and braced up, and his tone was 
not quite so gloomy, though his words were 
dispirited enough. 

“ I suppose it is ridiculously small, even for 
a beginning ! Fact is, I was ’way up in the 
clouds after that talk to-night, and I believe 
I had a notion I could start right in first 
thing this fall with a good round sum in 
hand, and a chance to pay expenses ! ” 

“ Most beginnings are ridiculous, till they 
stop being beginnings!” returned Polly 
bravely. “ You are n’t the boy I take you 
for, Bert Whitcomb, if you let one night 
discourage you, and not even a No said to 
you at that ! Men you wanted to see just 
happened to be out, and so you ’re dis¬ 
couraged ! ” 

Polly knew when to comfort, and when to 
put a flick of scorn into her voice. It was 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 157 

n’t that, either, exactly. That is quite too 
hard a word for it. She never had scorn, 
except for baseness. Tom Pickles, now 
—well, a boy that would lie ! And they said 
he did lie; she had heard so. But to her 
friends Polly was like a bright, clear, bracing 
May day, when the sun shines and the wind 
is blowing. Not too sweet—not June, by any 
means. There was a fresh tingle in her talk 
that made you feel glad to be alive and with 
her, and able for your best. Bert thought 
some of these things as he turned and looked 
at Polly. 

“ I’m not as plucky as you, Polyanthus !” 
he said lightly. “ Maybe I ’ll get to be, 
though, if you stay here long enough.” 

Next day he burst into the house with a 
’Rah! ’Rah ! ’Rah ! that brought everybody 
to listen. 

“ I’ve sold a wheel ! First man I struck 
this morning ! ” 

“ Good ! ” said father heartily. “ Deliver 
your goods and drop your money in the bank. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


158 

Not one cent of this goes where the rest of 
your earnings have. We’ll get along some¬ 
how.” 

“ How about omens ? ” said Polly teasingly. 

“ Mr. Royce told me to talk up ’cycles as 
I go my rounds. Says he ’ll trust me to be 
honest with his time. Do n’t take long to 
open up on it anywhere, and if I see any 
chance, to tell ’em I ’ll call in the evening or 
some time. Anyhow that’s what I’ve done 
to day. It’s Will—Will Somerby. Another 
day and I ’d have been too late for him. 
Been looking round for a week, he says. If 
I can have some supper quick, I ’ll go right 
over to the place with him. He ’ll take it 
fast enough ; agreed to. To-night, if they 
’ve got just the one that suits him. If not, 
he knows just what he wants and will order 
one.” 

Bert got no more customers that week. 
As Aunt Easter said, they did n’t hang out 
on every bush. Still he felt pretty well sat¬ 
isfied. He had taken father’s advice and 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


1 S9 

“ dropped his money in the bank/’ and a 
savings-bank book is a thing of beauty in the 
eyes of him who for the first time makes use 
of one. 

Polly also came in flourishing a specimen 
of the same blue-covered literature. 

“ Make the most of me while I ’m poor!” 
she cried, showing them her first proud de¬ 
posit. “ I went the rounds with a little note¬ 
book one day at recess, and again at noon, 
and I ’ve kept at it nights and mornings, till 
I Ve got down the name of every girl that 
owns a bicycle on one set of pages, and every 
girl that wants one on another, and the rest 
of the book is for the ones that can be made 
to want ’em. I tell you I go at it scien¬ 
tifically ! ” 

“All on ’em say, ‘Yes, and thank ye,’ first 
minute you mention it, I suppose ? ” said 
Aunt Easter. 

“Why, no!” said Polly, whose chief de¬ 
fence with Aunt Easter was to take her lit¬ 
erally and refuse to see any sarcasm. “You 


t 6o a bunker hill failure 

would be surprised to see how many there 
are who have n’t thought about having any, 
or have n’t got the money, or are quite sure 
they do n’t want any. For all that, I sold one 
and got my money.” 

“You ’ll be going oh to Vassar or Wellesley 
or some’ers on the proceeds,” said Aunt 
Easter bitterly, as she turned off toward her 
own room. She still felt regretful over that 
west room with the three windows and the 
“ chimly place,” and it rasped her a little to 
see everybody getting their heart’s desire, 
while she yet lived in the land of broken 
promise. 

“ No, I sha’ n’t, Aunt Easter ! ” said Polly 
with decision. “ I shall stick to my original 
plan now, and be a ‘ Normal.’ But every 
cent in this world that rolls my way is going 
to be saved for—a purpose. I ’m not going 
to live many years without my precious 
mother! ” 

Polly did not say much about her mother, 
or hint at homesickness, but Bert remem- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE I ^ I 

bered that cry on the back staircase, and 
admired more than ever the steadfast little 
heart that knew the difference between sen¬ 
timentality and sentiment. “ Out of sight, 
out of mind,” could never apply to Polly. 

“ Poor Aunt Easter ! ” said Polly, inter¬ 
rupting his thoughts, or breaking them off 
short in her abrupt fashion. “ Did anything 
nice ever happen to her ? I wish we could 
do something perfectly hilarious and get her 
into it ! ” 

“ How do you mean ? ” asked Bert vaguely. 

“ I don’t know, exactly,” said Polly 
dreamily. “ Maybe I ’ll think it out. She 
ought to have something happen to her.” 

“ Do n’t see what’s set you off about her.” 

“You don’t? Why, nothing — only ! 
Why, it always seemed to me that dulness 
and unhappiness are the worst things in the 
world, and the people that are that way are 
real objects of charity, so to speak—enough 
worse than any tramp that comes to the back 
door for a ‘ meal o’ victuals, mum ’ ! Sickness 


162 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


and accident, and having to be poor and all 
that, are n’t to be compared to it.” 

“ But what are you going to do about it, 
if they will be dull and are bound to be un¬ 
happy ? ” 

“ Oh, I believe ‘there ’s always some¬ 
thing, somehow. Bert ! dreariness and low- 
spiritedness are just horrible ! They make 
people —insane ! Did you know it ? ” 

All at once Bert remembered. Polly had 
known what it was to live with low spirits. 
This very minute her own mother was “ not 
quite right,” and the cause, as he and all the 
family knew, away back, years before any 
great grief had touched her, when she was 
heart and crown of a happy home, when she 
was safe, well, with husband and children 
around her —then, the cause was “ dreariness 
and low spirits.” Polly looked tragic enough 
to be remembering it too. 

“ And I’m determined,” she went on, just 
as if they had been talking instead of think¬ 
ing for the last two minutes, “ that I ’ll do 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE ^3 

what I can to break it up for poor Aunt 
Easter. She’s real good, when you get 
down under the crust! No, I do n’t think 
I’ve thought of a thing. But I will. You 
think and tell me. That will be a beginning.” 


CHAPTER XII 


TANNER STREET 

“Thy love ordains me pleasant things.” 

— A. L. Waring. 

IT ERE, you little scamp ! Where’d ye 
get that bike ?” 

Jacky turned round calmly and surveyed 
the boy who had accosted him. He even 
got down from his wheel and leaned it up 
against a tree, and stood beside it. Conscious 
innocence was such a pleasant feeling that 
he thought he might as well take time to 
enjoy it. 

“ Would you please to go to—Podunk ?” 

he requested urbanely. 

Agreeably to Polly’s suggestion, he had 

come to substitute that place of exile on most 

occasions for some others that she objected 

to on one score or another. 

164 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


i6 5 

“ You ’re mighty cool about it, seems to 
me,” observed the fellow, eyeing him suspi¬ 
ciously. “ I do n’t believe you come by 
that there wheel in any square-rigged 
fashion ! Out with it ! Where ’d ye get 
her ? ” 

“ That bi-cy-cle, sir,” said Jacky deliber¬ 
ately, “ cost the sum of pretty nigh a hundred 
dollars. Beauty, ain’t she ?,” 

“ Where’d ye get her ?” 

“ Hands off!” said Jacky, offering to kick 
his knuckles as he stooped to touch the 
wheel. “Any fellow steals this wheel I ’ll 
skin him alive next time I catch him ! ” 

The boy burst out laughing and threw an 
admiring glance at Jacky. 

“ Cool as a refrigerator, you are ! ” he said, 
still laughing. “ As near as I remember, 
them were exactly my sentiments and about 
my words the last wheel you stole off’n me. 
’Member, do n’t ye ? A year or so ago, down 
front the postofhce ? I ’d ’a’ done it, too, if 
you had n’t been such a little feller ! ” 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


166 

“ I never stole a thing in my life I did n’t 
brung it right back again soon ’s I was done 
usin’ it ! ” said Jacky indignantly. 

“ ’Cept one time ! ’’said the other threaten¬ 
ingly. “ Oncet you did n’t. And I’ve a good 
mind to take this little plaything you’ve stole 
from somebody else, no doubt, an’ let it go 
toward that one you kind o’ forgot to return, 
ye know! ” 

“ ’Cept no time ! ” burst out Jacky, turning 
pale, though, for the boy he had seen at the 
foot of the hill, and had supposed to be Bert, 
turned out to be some stranger, who could 
not know him or protect him. “ I tell ye 
this is my own bicycle, that my—that some¬ 
body gave me ! And I never stole anything 
o’ yours, ’cept what 1 give back to ye. And 
I have n’t got a thing to make up for. You 
’ve got hold of the wrong feller ! ” 

“ Mebbe. I ain’t apt to forget a boy’s face, 
’specially when they steal things. You did 
puzzle me a bit once—in bed there, with all 
that white sheet and night-gound round ye. 



)? 


“If you’ll never, never tell, 


began Polly 















A BUNKER HILL FAILURE ^7 

But I ’ve got ye fast in my mind now, and I 
sha’ n’t let ye slip again. ” 

“What’s all this?” said Bert sternly, ap¬ 
pearing suddenly on the scene. He had a 
“ day off,” by special commission to look 
after Jacky, who was not trusted to take long 
trips alone, and had been with him a number 
of miles off on the hills since morning. He 
meant to keep him in sight, though he had 
not always kept up with him. 

“What you bothering him about?” he 
asked roughly, turning from Jacky’s troubled 
face to the big fellow beside him. The next 
instant he recognized him, and held out his 
hand heartily. 

“ Weskit /” he cried, laughing. For the 
life of him he could n’t help letting out that 
nickname. It conquered his gruffness. 

“ Where d’ you ever hear that ? ” said the 
boy with a short laugh. “ That’s what the 
fellows call me, but it plagues me how you 
get hold of it so pat.” 

“Why, you said it was Wes-something 


168 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

Kittredge, was n’t it? So, of course, I put 
the two together. Weston, is it?” 

“Yes; the other ’s all right. This little 
chap stayed with you ever since ?” 

“ Yes. Has n’t he got a nice little wheel 
of his own ? My cousin got it for him.” 

“ There , old Clackity !” broke forth Jacky 
in irrepressible triumph. “P’r’aps you ’ll 
say again I stole a wheel I earned by the 
sweat o’ my brow—that is, that my—that 
somebody gave to me ! An’ now you take 
that back ’bout my ever taking anything o’ 
your ’n ! ” 

“Did n't you, now?” asked Weskit 
squarely. 

“ No, sir! I dud n't! ” said Jacky, looking 
as if he felt the Bible under his hand. 

The boy looked at him a good long second 
or two, then held out his hand. 

“ I believe yer ! You do n’t look that way 
when you ’re lyin’. I guess ’t was another 
feller.” 

As if dismissing the subject, he turned his 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE i6g 

back on Jacky and said a few words in a low 
tone to Bert. 

“ Long’s you say he’s kind o’ decent, and 
I think he is, too, myself, I ’ll tell you some¬ 
thing I ’ve found out about him, if you want 
to know ! I Ve been down to Tanner Street 
again ! ” 

“ Where we went, an’ did n’t find any¬ 
body ?” cried Bert, tingling all over suddenly 
with the strange thrill one has on the verge 
of a discovery. “ What did you find out— 
Weskit ? ” 

“ Well, I ’ll tell ye ! ” said the boy, looking 
gratified, as he always did at Bert’s friendli¬ 
ness. “ Come sit down on the roots of this 
tree, and let the kid circulate round us. No 
use to let him into it before he needs to.” 

Bert went over and spoke a few words to 
Jacky, who darted off on his wheel, out of 
earshot. 

“ I never got over being mad about the 
way you looked with that little feller layin’ 
over your arm that night, ” remarked Weskit, 


170 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


meditatively, as Bert came back to him. 
“ I can stand most things, but not seeing a 
baby like that abused with pokers and things. 
They may take somebody of their size and I 
won’t trouble ’em. Then, seeing him in bed 
there, and his little head all cut and banged. 
I could have given them a little taste of their 
own medicine with a good relish that morn¬ 
ing if I could have lighted on ’em. First I 
did n’t know who’t was, you know.” 

“ But you said you had seen him !” broke 
in Bert, remembering his curious start at 
sight of him. 

“Yes,” laughed the other. “ I had seen 
him ! Used to be the plague of my life, and 
a good many folks ’ lives, stealing rides on 
bicycles or trying to. Not that he got a 
chance so very often, but we always had to 
be on the lookout for him.” 

“ Stole them?” asked Bert, frowning. 

“ No, only a ride on ’em. Always brought 
’em back soon’s he could and keep a whole 
skin. We’d find ’em leaning up against the 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE I7l 

fence all comfortable as you please, and 
nobody round to ask questions. Once in 
a while he got a boxed ear, but mostly the 
fellows were pretty tender of his bones, con¬ 
siderin’ that’s ’bout all he had under his skin 
anyway. ” 

“ What were you going to tell me?” asked 
Bert, anxious to bring him to the point. 

“ Well,” said Weskit, circling round it, like 
a bee over a flower, “ I kind o’ kept up my 
interest in him, after falling in with you so. 
I always had it down against him that he 
went off with my wheel and swapped it off 
for something, or broke it or got rid of it 
somehow, but I rather guess I shall scratch 
that off my books after this. I guess I mis¬ 
took him for some other scamp o’ the same 
size. ” 

“What did you find out?” asked Bert 
again, not very patiently. 

“ Well, who he belonged to, for one 
thing ! ” said Weskit coolly. 

“What!” said Bert, jumping to his feet. 


172 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“ Yes, ’t was easy enough. You see it 
wa’ n’t any trouble to speak of to keep an 
eye on Tanner Street, and people do n’t desert 
by the wholesale to stay, very often. Mostly 
they come back some time or another, as 
they say ghosts do, to see the places where 
they used to cut up. ” 

“ Let’s go down there and drag the truth 
out of them! ” said Bert, boiling over with 
impatience. 

“ Do n’t hurry, sonny ! ” drawled the other. 
“ I did all that, full as well as you ’d ’a’ 
known how to gone at it ! ” 

“ What did you do ? Charge them with 
their abuse of Jacky. ” 

“Naw!”witha wrinkled nose of disgust 
and a tone of cumulative scorn. “ They 
would n’t remember a little thing like 
that.” 

“What did you do?” 

“ Went at ’em hammer an’ tongs ’bout 
that little machine I spoke to Jacky about, 
an’ he says he did n’t confiscate, after all. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 173 

Told ’em to hand over, or there would be 
trouble. ” 

“ What made you think they had anything 
to do with it?” asked Bert without much 
interest. Bicycles were of very small account 
beside Jacky. 

“ Knew they had n’t. Just mentioned it 
as an easy way of starting conversation, that 
’s all. Have to say something, and the 
weather was n’t anything special. Of course 
they had to defend theirselves, and bein’ 
innocent, the old woman grew precious 
talkative. ” 

“ Well, what did she say?” asked Bert in 
despair. 

“ Never touched a bicycle. Never sor one. 
Did n’t know what they looked like. If 
she had seen one walking right in at that 
blessed door on two legs that very minute, 
she could n’t ’a’ put a name to it. She was 
just that ignorant. And as for Jacky”— 

Weskit paused cunningly, with his eyes 
half shut, holding one patched knee in both 


*74 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


hands, as he leaned back against the tree 
trunk. 

“As for Jacky ? ” repeated Bert breathlessly, 
looking beseechingly at his tormentor. 

—“ She never see nor heard tell of sech a 
boy ! ” said Weskit, laughing hoarsely, and 
rocking back and forth in his enjoyment. 

Bert’s blank face set him off in another 
peal of laughter, and he was probably revolv¬ 
ing in his mind another plan of raising Bert’s 
hopes and dashing them, for the fun he got 
out of it, when he caught sight of Jacky’s 
wheel in the distance, or rather of the cloud 
of dust that told he was approaching. He 
sobered down, and was going to speak, when 
an intuition of the true state of things 
came over Bert, and he caught him by the 
collar. 

“You tell me the straight, white truth 
about this business, old fellow ! ” he cried 
fiercely, “ and in pretty quick time, too, or 
there ’ll be trouble. I ’ve stood enough of 
your nonsense ! If you’ve been fooling me 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 175 

all this time—and I believe my soul you 
have ! ” 

“ Oh, come off! ” said Weskit good-hu¬ 
moredly, shaking himself free with a good 
wrench that left part of his fragile coat collar 
in Bert’s hand, “ course I was fooling, so fur ! 
No harm in that! No hurry, as I can see ! 
Lots o’ fun for me, and did n’t hurt you any. 
But I really did find out something. ” 

“ Out with it, then ! You said they would 
n’t own up to ever having anything to do 
with the boy. ” 

“ Oh, w T ell, I shook ’em down off that 
branch pretty quick ! ” he answered. 
“ Showed how I could prove more ’n they 
wanted to have proved by a good deal. And 
they owned up after a while that Jacky was no 
kin o’ their’n ; course I knew he wa’ n’t; and 
they had taken him in when his mother died 
in the room above there,—they showed me 
the place,—and nobody coming to claim him, 
they’d kept him, hoping to make him useful 
some day in one way or another. There was 


176 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


some things they got along with him that 
made ’em think there might be money in 
him. His mother had crawled back home 
with him to try and get to a brother o’ 
her’n that lives here ”— 

“ Tell the rest of it ! ” commanded Bert 
as he threatened to come to a stockstill. 

—“ But died before she did it, and there 
was nothing but a few rags o’ clothes and a 
box o’ papers to tell who she was or the boy 
either.” 

“ Who was her brother ? ” asked Bert with 
what seemed to himself to be supernatural 
calmness. 

“ A man, I b’lieve ’t was, by the name o’ 
Royce. ” 


CHAPTER XIII 

A RAIN THAT POURED 

“ He guides our feet, He guards our way ; 

His morning smiles bless all the day. ’ ’ 

AS we cannot well spare another chapter 
for Weskit’s leisurely revelations, let 
it suffice that the truth of what he had told 
Bert was soon established, and for the first 
time in his life that he could remember, 
Jacky had a local habitation and a name 
belonging to him, and not of charity or 
courtesy. It was the simplest possible out¬ 
come of events when you came to sift it, 
without any shadow of mystery or hardly of 
strangeness about it. As Weskit said, poor, 
broken-hearted Lucy had “ crawled back 
home in the hope of getting to her brother, 

but the end came too soon for her, and the 
x 77 


12 


178 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

little fellow was left to anybody’s charity, 
without much chance of finding that which 
belonged to him. But “ God that chance 
did guide.” His face spoke for him when 
he came across his uncle’s path by accident, 
and, living along in the same town, the rest 
had seemed to come naturally^enough. 

The two most concerned took the news 
very calmly. Mr. Royce did not care to go 
into details very deeply. He had the boy. 

“ Let his father’s name go ! Luckily he 
died soon after he married my poor Lucy ! 
His name is Jacky Royce.” 

Mr. Royce did not seem half so much 
surprised at the confirmation of his hopes as 
they expected him to. The documents in 
the little box were well enough, but what 
difference did they make “ when he knew 
it ” ? He had meant all the time to take 
Jacky home as soon as he got good and strong 
and over the need of coddling. Of course 
it was a good thing to be able to point out 
to strangers that he was a “ blood relation.” 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


179 


In one house, at least, no one had ever 
tried to persuade him otherwise. Oddly 
enough, it was one of the things for which 
he seemed to be most grateful. It is very 
curious to notice the sort of things that do 
waken our gratitude. 

Jacky still stayed at the Whitcombs’, and 
Mr. Royce often came to visit there, and sit 
on the long red settee out on the piazza, and 
fold his hands over the top of his cane and 
dream an hour away. 

After one of these long silences he rose 
and stood looking at Bert, who had just come 
through the screen door. 

“Thee was Very good to my little lad,” 
he said slowly, as if the thought had just 
come to him ; “ in the store, among the other 
clerks when they were kicking him around ; 
before ever thee could have guessed what 
he was to me. I saw it all. I have been 
remembering. I do n’t know why the Lord 
should say ‘Inasmuch’ and I not. What¬ 
ever was done for the boy was done to me. 


180 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

I want to pay part of my debt—what part can 
be paid with money ? ” 

“ We loved him, too ; we don’t want any 
reward ! ” interposed Mrs. Whitcomb hastily, 
and Bert echoed her words in all sincerity. 

“ I have made my will to-day,” said the 
old man, with no appearance of listening to 
either of them, “ and the little that I leave 
when I am done with it will make a good 
start in life for the boy if he knows what to 
do with it. That is safe in the bank, and the 
two will grow together. Meanwhile I have 
a little of my own to use as I have a mind 
to.” 

Bert could not help laughing at the idea 
of his not using all of it as he had a mind to. 

“ In the mean time,” he repeated, holding 
out a hand to Bert, who answered with an 
impulsive step forward to meet it, “ I ask 
the privilege of charging myself with thy 
education.” 

For some time Bert would not listen to a 
word of his project. To tell the truth, he 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 181 

did not really wish it. Very dear are the 
sweets of independence. If his father were 
not able to defray his expenses, he wished 
very earnestly that he himself might be 
the only one to thank for his lift up the 
ladder. 

“ That is not the way to look at it,” Mr. 
Royce told him, while secretly admiring his 
self-helpful spirit. “ A part of it, at least, is 
a simple debt that I ought to pay for, some¬ 
how, in dollars and cents. Jacky has had 
a home here—how long ? A good many 
months, with the best of care and nursing. 
That, again, is n’t a fraction of all he owes 
you, and I through him. Why should you 
try to reckon up ? We shall never come out 
even. 

“ And then again,” he resumed, as nobody 
answered, “ suppose there were nothing. A 
good man is the best bank to invest money 
in. Suppose I wanted to help the world on 
by helping to send a good man into it. 
Would n’t it be a better spirit to take the 


182 


A BUNKER IIILL FAILURE 


help that is given in Christ’s name and use 
it ‘ In His Name ’ ? ” 

The Quaker’s arguments were unan¬ 
swerable, and in the end the3' had to 
triumph: 

“ Come, take a walk with me,” he said, 
getting up and going down the steps as if he 
expected Bert to follow. 

They took the way to what Polly referred 
to as the apple orchard ; a sunny knoll back 
of the house which was crowned with one 
gnarled old apple tree and a hedge of goose¬ 
berries. It was quite like Polly to make 
the most of that one tree and ignore the 
sourness of the gooseberries. 

They walked on silently, past the low 
hedge with its tender sprouting leaves of 
greenish yellow, past the representative apple 
tree that had already spread a pink-white 
tablecloth as if to invite somebody to a picnic, 
on down below the green crest of the hill 
to where a row of nodding lilacs tossed 
jauntily their spicy plumes. To the day of 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 183 

his death Bert will never smell lilacs without 
seeing a kind face turned toward him, and 
feeling a friendly arm thrown round his 
shoulders. Some of the words spoken there 
he remembers also. 

“ Thee is Christ’s man ?” asked Mr. Royce, 
looking at him keenly. 

“ I have given myself to Him forever ! ” 
confessed Bert humbly and proudly. 

“ Then thee cannot refuse an older 
brother’s helpfulness ! ” said Mr. Royce with 
the winning smile that so became him. 
“ Do for me what I am trying to do for my¬ 
self—serve the world in Christ’s name. My 
life will pass sooner or later, but thee can 
piece it out for me ! ” 

When they came home, both faces were 
so happy and peaceful that mother knew the 
question was settled, and no one ever asked 
or told that Bert was going to start in with 
the fall term to enter college. It was taken 
for granted. 

“ It never rains but it pours ! ” said Aunt 


184 ^ BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

Easter mournfully. Oh, how many times 
had she said it ! 

“ I believe I shall take up your proverb ! ” 
said mother one morning, smiling at her. 
“ I shall have to believe that ‘ it never rains 
but it pours ’—blessings ! ” 

“ You don’t know what may happen! ” 
said Aunt Easter dolefully. 

“ No,” said mother, merrily and wilfully 
misunderstanding her. “ I feel prepared for 
anything ! Once let good luck loose in a 
house, and it has to have its run, like a fever 
or mumps and measles. I ’m waiting to see 
what next ! ” 

As if in confirmation of her faith, a letter 
came before May had got to the middle that 
set the whole household rejoicing. Of course 
father had not submitted to his long and 
tedious recovery from the accident that had 
proved fatal to so many others without see¬ 
ing what could be done in the way of getting 
damages from those responsible or blamable 
in the affair. The law’s delays had gradually 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 185 

extinguished what little hope they had had 
in receiving help from that quarter, and it 
had been a year of careful economy, not to 
say, in spite of themselves, of a little anxious 
foresight. They had made ends meet ; ends 
had to meet where mother was. But, as 
Bert phrased it, or paraphrased it, “ There 
was little to earn and many to keep, and 
Aunt Easter did the moaning. ” 

This little, thin, official lawyer’s letter had 
a bit of curt, official news in it. The jury 
had awarded Dr. Jarvis Whitcomb the sum 
of three thousand dollars in consideration of 
damages sustained by him in the railroad 
accident above and below and aforemen¬ 
tioned, etc. 

The margin—the margin is everything ! 
The little sum that raises us above want, the 
dime or the dollar that we do not need to 
use—that is affluence. This sum, small or 
large as you may please to call it, made all 
the world rose color for the Whitcomb house¬ 
hold. True, it did not warrant them in go- 


i86 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


ing immediately to housebuilding again ; 
but it would do so many other things ! It 
would put a little safe nest egg in the bank, 
a very necessary provision against worry. 
It would give them something to live on till 
father got round again, for he was not 
“ round ” yet in any such sense as he had 
been in active “ doctoring days, ” before the 
accident. It would start Bert in at college, 
even, if need were ; but for this they found 
there was no need of forecasting. Bert was 
well provided for. 

So, one by one, the heavy loads began to 
be lightened, and the pluck and energy that 
had gone to bearing them could be turned 
in more profitable directions. To say true, 
the future had looked very dubious when¬ 
ever they had tried to look ahead further 
than they had any business to. In the light 
of present blessings they saw how they might 
have spared themselves a good many of their 
worries. We have the Lord’s promise, if 
we will take it, that not only shall there 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 187 

no evil befall us, but that we shall be quiet 
from the fear of evil. 

The last brimming drop that made Bert’s 
cup of summer happiness run over was Dick’s 
proposal to “chum” with him. A deep 
friendship, so different from the old that 
it seemed a new one, had sprung up between 
the two, and nothing could have been more 
congenial to Bert’s feelings. Dick was a 
second-year man, to be sure, but that made 
no difference, in fact made it all the better, 
as he “ knew the ropes,” and could supply 
worldly wisdom where it was needed. Dick 
had a fine room already picked out,—not the 
same one he had had last year, but bigger, 
—and he offered to go on with Bert and 
“ clinch the bargain,” or both start out to¬ 
gether and find another. This one had a 
small room (or big closet) opening out of it, 
that Dick suggested might make a cubby¬ 
hole for Phil when he came to visit them, as 
he had announced his immediate determi¬ 
nation of doing. 


i88 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


Phil's whoop of joy when he heard of the 
cubby-hole settled all doubts in favor of the 
fine room, and it was not five minutes before 
a “ visiting trunk ” was started down in Phil’s 
quarters, in order to have everything ready 
on time when the invitation should arrive a 
month or six months later. 

“ For you see it takes me a good deal 
longer time to pack than it does you, Bert, ” 
he explained as he piled the things in ten¬ 
tatively, “for I have so many more things to 
carry. ” 


CHAPTER XIV 


ONE OF MOTHER’S IDEAS 

“ I have a fellowship with hearts 
To keep and cultivate. ” 

T T is the solemn truth ! ” murmured Polly 
with her hands in her pockets. “ I am 
all out of them ! ” 

They were very cunning little white-apron 
pockets, and Polly had a little white cap on 
her curls, and she was surveying the pantry 
shelves with a pretty air of housewifery that 
was vastly becoming. In the summer vaca¬ 
tions Polly did cooking to her heart’s con¬ 
tent, with the happy result of contenting 
others at the same time, for Polly had a nice 
little knack at biscuits and puddings and such 
like, that any girl is sure to find very usable. 

“ Out of what, Polly ? ” said mother, look- 

189 


9 ° 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


ing up from her sewing chair. “ I do hope 
you are n’t going to ask me to send for the 
man again this week ! I thought we ordered 
enough of everything to last over Sunday. 
It costs so to buy in littles, you know, besides 
making extra trouble. What are you out of, 
dear ? ” 

“ Ideas , auntie ! ” said Polly, waking up. 
“ I have used the last one in the house. And 
the Young People’s Society of Christian En¬ 
deavor is depending on me to get up its first 
fall social of some entirely new and unheard- 
of pattern, and we have already had them of 
all kinds and every color—blue, pink, and 
green socials, red, yellow, and brown. We 
have had walking libraries, cobweb socials, 
umbrella spreads, broom drills, cane (C) 
rushes, and I just- don’t believe there is a 
thing left to have. ” 

“ Why not have a social ? ” said mother 
when she got a chance to say anything. 

“ A—which ?” gasped Polly, staring at her. 

“ Just a plain social. A good social social, 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


9 1 


without any name to it and no foolishness. 
Talk. Play games. Have a good time. 
Get”— 

“ Oh, a children’s social ! ” said Polly. 

“ No, nor a grandmothers’ social, nor a fat 
folks’ social, nor a thin folks’ social. Just a 
social for everybody, old and young, dull 
and witty, baldheaded or curly-headed, with 
babies or without them. I give you my word, 
my dear, that you will find it a very pleasant 
affair; as you say, ‘something after an en¬ 
tirely new and unheard-of pattern. ’ That 
would be my idea. ” 

“ I ’m afraid it would be—do n’t you think 
it would be a fearfully mixed-up affair ? ” 

“ You need mixing.” 

All the forenoon Polly trotted round with 
that bee buzzing in her bonnet. 

“ I ’ve a good notion to do just that,” she 
remarked to the cat in a confidential tone, as 
she came purring and rubbing around ; “ just 
that, and call it ‘ Mother’s Idea.’ Why not ?” 

“ Purr-fectly pr-pr-rrrroper ! ” said the cat, 


192 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


who always had the wit to agree with those 
who asked advice of her. 

“I thought you ’d agree with me!” said 
Polly, patting her. “You are a cat of judg¬ 
ment. Now as soon as those loaves of bread 
are out of the oven, let’s, you and I, set to 
work and see what we can do towards carry¬ 
ing out one of mother’s ideas. It’s the 
mothers that know things and this auntie- 
mother of mine is one of the knowingest of 
the lot. Oh, dear! will I ever get my owny- 
downy mother back, I wonder ! ” 

The little weep she was just going to drop 
into in the seclusion of the basement kitchen 
was postponed on account of Doddie’s foot¬ 
falls, which anybody would know belonged 
to Doddie, if they heard them in the Eiffel 
Tower, they had such a one-legged cadence 
about them somehow. 

One-two! one-two ! one-two! down they 
came, one foot at a time, and the other in 
no time, so that you did n’t have to count 
it. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


193 


“Have you been making cwusty bwead 
for me?” she demanded, standing in the 
doorway and sniffing deliciously in the direc¬ 
tion of the oven. 

“ Yes, but they ’re as hot as pepper now, 
Doddie,” replied Polly, depositing the last 
loaf on the cake board. “ Just sit down 
there and wait till I go and skim the cream 
for the berries and then we ’ll go up and find 
Bert, you and I. I ’ve got business with 
Mr. Bert, and he ’ll just have to let us up 
the ladder.” 

New-baked bread is lovely. I do n’t mean 

to defend Doddie. I know she sinned, and 

of course I feel real bad about it. But did 

you ever know how nice the brown corner 

ends of fresh loaves are, when they first come 

out of the oven, just about the time they are 

cool enough to handle ? There are eight 

corners to each loaf, so tempting and nutty 

and fragrant. Doddie nibbled them all ; 

four loaves and the whole eight corners! 

When Polly came back from the cold closet, 
!3 


i 9 4 -4 BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

she sat in the middle of the floor, with the 
last big one in her two buttery hands, the 
“skin” all nibbled round on this one, for 
corners had not satisfied her hunger. 

Polly stood and looked at her. It was the 
Saturday’s baking, and they were going to 
have company to tea. 

“ Do you think that’s quite fair to the rest 
of the folks ? ” she said at last, feeling bound 
to say something in the interests of law and 
order. 

Doddie looked crestfallen for a moment, 
then brightened. She hated to be thought 
selfish. 

“ This bottom side is n’t eatened ! ” she 
said, holding it up. “ And the other loafses 
not any, but only at the corners ! Let ’s 
take some up to Bert and the west of the 
fam’ly, and see if they don’t fink they ’re 
nice and beau’ful ! ” 

Polly made up her mind that mice and 
three-year-olds are to be guarded against, not 
reasoned with, and taking her hand, led heL 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE I95 

upstairs and up another “ stairs ” till they 
stood at the foot of Bert’s ladder. 

A time of preparation had begun for Bert 
such as the boy would not have submitted 
to a year before, and certainly would not 
then have originated. The matter of college 
once decided, he bade good-bye to the store 
at once, and immediately went up in the 
world—clear up—and pulled the ladder after 
him. 

Phil stood under the closed trapdoor that 
hid Bert and his books from vulgar view, 
and represented his desolate condition with 
nobody but Aunt Easter to play with, but 
Bert was obdurate. 

“ Do you suppose I’m going to get in by 
the skin of my teeth, as father says ? ” he 
demanded one morning when Phil had seized 
him by the leg just as he was disappearing 
into his den. “ No, sir ! There are three 
solid months left before I start in on any 
new work, and they ’re going to be given to 
solid ‘boning.’ Of course they won’t all 


I9 6 a bunker hill failure 

count on ‘ exams.’ Some of ’em—prelimi¬ 
naries—will come in right away, but it will all 
count on my ‘ fit.’ So good-bye, old man ! 
I shall have to decline the pleasure of your 
amusing company.” 

A few days of this sort of thing, following 
an active, open-air life, such as he had been 
enjoying for the last few months, were enough 
to convince him of the folly of it. He’became 
aware one morning that he had “no brains 
in the top of his head in the place where the 
brains ought to grow. ” A rough-and-tumble 
romp in the barn with Phil put the dumps 
to flight for both of them, and Bert announced 
to his father that he guessed it would be a 
good plan to get out the gloves and foils and 
have a little bout every morning, if he felt 
strong enough. 

“Better try the Delsarte ‘breathings,”' 
said his father, who did n’t feel very strong 
in the arms yet. “ That will help you on the 
‘ Kellogg ’ next year, and I want you to try 
for that. The thing I was beaten on, I’d 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE lg7 

beat in. Buckle right to and try for it, if for 
no other earthly reason.” 

Bert agreed, after some demurring, but 
said he would get Dick round to do the 
other. 

“ All right,” said father, “ if you will do 
this.” 

Thereafter at certain hours the house shook 
with the sound of manly exercises, and at 
others (more uncertain, according as Bert 
appeared to need it, and father felt like it) 
echoed to 

“ What! dar’st thou, then, 

To beard the lion in his den ? ” 

and other “ breathings, ” all on strictly scien¬ 
tific principles, bad as they sounded. Small 
boys gathered at the gate to listen to agi¬ 
tated cries of “ Villain, would you murder 
your own father ! ” and a neighbor was now 
and then seen to thrust a frowzy head out of 
a chamber window in the early mornings 
when Bert besought his father in agoniz- 


i 9 8 a bunker hill failure 

ing accents to “ have mer-r-cy ” on his 
“ bo-o-oy ! ” To the two most concerned, 
however, these exercises were of quite un¬ 
mixed benefit, and were continued through 
the summer. Bert refused to give his suf¬ 
frages in their favor when the choice lay be¬ 
tween them and tennis, and the Delsartean 
professor was apt to be left alone in his glory 
whenever Dick or Larkin happened around 
out of Bert’s self-elected study hours. On 
the whole, however, the practice was pretty 
well kept up, and great good came of it. 

In addition to all this there appeared, 
posted in conspicuous places about the 
house, copies of the following bulletin 

IMPORTANT TO HOUSEKEEPERS. 

Errands run on the double-quick to any point within city 
limits, between the hours of 12 and 2 p . m ., 4-6, or before 
breakfast. Coal hods filled at a cooky apiece, or five hods 
for half a dozen cookies. Clothes reels, rugs and ashes at¬ 
tended to at corresponding prices^ 


This morning Bert was wrestling with a 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


*99 

plaguy problem. That was what he called 
it. Mathematics were apt to plague him. 
There were a good many other things he 
could do better than geometric problems. 

“Doddie wants you, Bert ! ” called Polly 
in an insinuating voice at the foot of the 
ladder. He had not thought to pull it up 
this time. 

No reponse. 

“ If A equals B” droned on the absorbed 
student. 

“ You holler ! ” whispered the wily Polly. 

“ Bert-twam ! ” called the little cat’s-paw. 

To any other voice Bert would have been 
as unresponsive as Poe’s raven, but Doddie 
never yet had called in vain, and the trap¬ 
door opened a grudging crack to give a 
chance for an answer. It was an unwary 
concession. 

Quick as a flash Jacky darted out of one 
bedroom door, at the foot of the ladder, and 
Phil out of another, and fairly squirmed up 
the sides in a snaky way and pushed the 


200 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


trapdoor open. Bert would have promptly 
shaken them off and barred his castle, but 
Doddie had started, giggling, to follow their 
example, and Polly, the remorseful, stood 
down there wringing her hands and trying 
to call them off, with about as much effect 
as a fussy old hen on the edge of a duck- 
pond. She had started the mischief and 
now it was quite beyond her. 

“ I just wanted to speak to you a minute !” 
she said penitently. “ I truly did n’t mean 
to let all this crew loose on you ! ” 

“ I knew it was you, all the time ! ” said 
Bert unforgivingly, forgetting to tell the 
truth in his vexation. “ Pretend to make 
me think 7 t was Doddie, when all you wanted 
was some of your own stuff ! ” 

“ I wanted to ask your advice about some¬ 
thing ! ” said guileful Polly. “ I suppose the 
others could have done to talk it over ! But 
I always like your ideas ! ” 

Bert did not openly swallow that bait, but 
half an hour later saw him and Polly and 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


201 


Doddie socially discussing the Idea under 
the apple tree in Polly’s orchard. 

“ She thinks we’d do better to mix people 
up more ; not fence off old folks and young 
folks so ! ” said Polly. 

“ I wish there could be something of that 
kind ! ’’ said Bert heartily. “ Do you know 
I think it would be so much better for the 
young folks, too ? Off by ourselves, we are 
one of two things—either poky or dissipated !” 

“ Well, it’s so ! ” laughed Polly. “ A good 
deal too much so. The way we stand round, 
and sit round, and pretend to be tremen¬ 
dously interested in the silly little schemes 
we get up to amuse ourselves ! And then 
we rush to the other extreme and give 
ourselves up to a lot of children’s games like 
‘dropping the handkerchief,’ and ‘bean- 
bags, ’ and all sorts of shrieking plays that 
make us go home half ashamed of our¬ 
selves.” 

“ And the old people are n’t in it at all, ” 
said Bert thoughtfully, remembering some- 


202 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


thing Polly had said awhile ago about Aunt 
Easter. 

“ No ; and do you know, I think there ’s 
getting to be a ‘great gulf fixed’ between us 
that’s going to be perfectly impassable one 
of these days ! And it ’s as bad for one side 
as the other.” 

“ My idea of the church, ” said Bert 
thoughtfully, “ is just a great, big splendid 
family, with all sorts of people in it, just as 
there always are in a good-sized family, and 
where nobody is fenced off, or set apart, or 
shut out, but where there ’s a kind of a 
general ”— 

“ Mixing up and joining in ! ” helped out 
Polly sympathetically. “ Yes, I know just 
what you mean. Perhaps your mother in¬ 
herited her idea from you ! I’m sure I do n’t 
see why it should n’t work as well in a church 
as in a family. Aunts and uncles, and all 
the boys and girls that do n’t have to be in 
bed, sit down with the father and mother 
after supper and enjoy what somebody calls 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


203 


the ‘flower of the day.’ Think of shutting 
your father out of our home evenings, sup¬ 
posing we had the ‘running’ of them !” 

“ Or Mr. Royce ! ” said Bert. 

“ Or Auntie Easter ! ” said Doddie, moved 
to take part in the consultation. 

Bert and Polly looked at each other with 
a sudden start, struck with the same thought 
at the same instant. 

“ I believe Doddie has got at the very core 
and kernel of this sociable business ! ” cried 
Bert enthusiastically. “You were talking 
to me awhile ago about Aunt Easter. I 
do n’t know about her, but I do know she 
stands for a lot of folks that we do n’t take a 
bit of pains to make have a good time in the 
world. They ’re sort of shut in upon them¬ 
selves, and they do n’t go anywhere, and ”— 
“ Oh, Bert, the thing we’ve got to do for 
these ‘ shut-ins ’ is first of all to make them 
feel they are n’t ‘ shut-outs ’ ! ” 

Bert, who was facing the house, jumped 
to his feet and called out to somebody who 


204 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


was coming up the footpath. Polly turned 
and saw Aunt Easter with a Shaker sunbon- 
net on and a pint bowl in her hand. She 
was coming to get gooseberries. 

“ Do n’t you want me to pick ’em for you, 
aunt?” he said obligingly, forgetting his 
hurry, which he had been remembering op¬ 
pressively all this time, in spite of his liking 
for a good talk with Polly. 

“ Oh, no, no, Bert ! ” whispered Polly 
hastily. “ Offer to pick with her ; that’s the 
idea! ” 

“ That’s so ! ” muttered Bert, seeing the 
point at once. “ Let’s all take hold together, 
Polly, Doddie ! It ’s great fun ! Can we 
pick right into your bowl, Aunt Easter ? ” 

“ They ’re dretful puckry things, goose- 
b’ries are ! ” said Aunt Easter, holding her 
bowl as handily as she could for them. 
“’T ain’t reely fruit time yet, for anything 
hut gooseb’ries. But they ’ll do to begin 



“ P’r’APS YOU’LL SAY AGAIN I STOLE A WHEEL!” 

















CHAPTER XV 


AUNT EASTER’S TURN 
“ Lord, when saw we thee an hungered ? ” 

J^INDNESS is catching. There is ab¬ 
solutely no other way of accounting 
for the lovely things that are all the time 
happening in this topsy-turvy world ! Jacky 
is getting to be just like all the rest of 
them! ” 

Aunt Easter was standing in the back 
doorway, looking off at the sunset, and hat¬ 
ing to leave it. The real sunset had faded, 
but the hazy blue hill was flushing still with 
a pink and gold memory of it, as if it was in 
no hurry to draw a black curtain over the 
good times they had all been having out 
there. She stood still and smoothed out her 

gingham shaker strings as Polly came run- 

20 ^ 


206 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


ning up behind her with a letter in her hand 
that she had just taken from the postman’s. 

“Who’s topsy-turvy ?” asked Aunt Easter, 
not making any motion to take the letter 
which Polly held out to her, “ and who’s 
been catching any ? ” 

It might have been the sunset on her face, 
but Polly could n’t help noticing what a nice- 
looking old lady she was when she was n’t 
hurrying or worrying. Most people would 
find a course of dropping those two things 
better than the best patent wrinkle remover. 
She held up her own letter gleefully, and sat 
down on the clean-swept doorstep to read it. 

“ It ’s nothing but a note, auntie,” said 
Polly, laughing at the funny, stubby pencil 
marks and the sixteenth-century spelling. 
“ I found it tied to the handle of the rolling- 
pin just now when I came in to make the 
biscuits for supper. It ’s Jacky, of course. 
But you read yours first.” 

“.Me read ? ” said Aunt Easter. “I never 
have a letter.” 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 207 

It was such a sad, true, odd thing to say, 
as Polly instantly reflected. To tell the sad, 
odd-sounding truth, Aunt Easter had been 
such a sour, suspecting, sharp-spoken sort 
of a person that nobody had wanted to write 
letters to her. Polly had known her only a 
year or less, but no doubt she had always 
been much the same. In the midst of her 
pity Polly had a glimpse of what old age 
might grow to be where one does not take 
pains to keep young and loving. 

“Then your turn has come at last !” she 
cried merrily. “ And a very handsome hand 
he writes, too, if I’m any judge of copper¬ 
plate ! ” 

“ Looks for all the world like ‘ Duty per¬ 
formed is a rainbow in the soul’! ” said Aunt 
Easter, thinking of Phil’s andJacky’s writing- 
books, to which they had been lately pro¬ 
moted in the course of their education. The 
boys and girls in this family all studied at 
home till the age of twelve, when they were 
ready for the first or second year of the high 


2 o8 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

school, and thereafter went on from grace to 
glory till the day of graduation. Jacky, being 
a newcomer, was not quite up to the standard, 
but he was able in most things to drop into 
the class with Phil, and showed himself a 
boy of “ parts ” so he was not despaired of. 

“ It’s a lawyer’s hand, or clerk’s, or some¬ 
thing ! ” said Polly with great penetration. 

“ Some old circ’lar, most likely ! ” said 
Aunt Easter, holding it up to catch the light. 
“ Can’t see whether there’s anythin’ ’xcept 
printing in it or not, can you ? ” 

“ Maybe I could if you’d open it,” sug¬ 
gested Polly. 

“ Can’t be Sister ’Senath’s folks, for we 
hain’t spoke nor passed the time o’ day for 
more ’n fifteen years. She’s too high-step- 
pin’ for me, and so I told her the last time 
she flared up when I was tryin’ to help her 
straighten out her housekeepin ’.” 

“ Open it, aunt,” begged Polly. 

“ It might be Silas Bean. But ’t ain’t,” 
she added bitterly. “ He knows I hain’t got 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


209 


any more money to borry. He borried and 
borried right an’ left, started a store ; failed 
up, borried some more, went out West, and 
I perzoom to say is going the same old round 
again, if he can find anybody that hain’t 
heard all about him. If I had all the money 
I ’ve lent an’ give in one way an’ another, I 
’d be consid’able better off than I am now, 
an’ nobody to thank for it.” 

Polly did not speak. The happy look had 
faded all out of Aunt Easter’s face, and she 
looked old and wrinkled. Her mouth grew 
bitter and sad, and her eyes contemptuous. 

“ Read your letter, child ! ” she said im¬ 
patiently. 

“ Why, I was waiting to have you ”—began 
Polly pityingly. How could she bring round 
her happiness just now? 

“ Read away,” said her aunt, putting the 

unopened letter in her pocket. “ I ’ll read 

my letter when I get ready. They do n’t 

come to me often enough to be in any hurry 

’bout reading ’em. It ’ll keep till I get this 
14 


210 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


table set, I guess. Read your ’n if you want 
to. I can hear, trottin’ round, jest as well 
as I can settin , . ,, 

“ Well, I will; only you ought to see it! 
I never can say the spelling. It begins:— 

“ ‘ Dear Poly ’ (one l) : ‘ wut shud yue say if I sfiud ask 
you too go sum wairs with me i do nos i shal, but im thing- 
ing abowt it. an unkil roys he says it wod be a firsrate 
plan to have yu' cum two hes going and when we was looking 
up the plaises on the mapp Bert said he thort that was ware 
yur muther livd an you was awfle homsick onct out on the 
bak stares an he gest you kep it up are you ? And wod you 
say yes if I and Unkle royc shud ask you yores as ever 
Jacky 

ps. som of this leter i spelt by the dikshunary an 
sum nott. jack ps he will pay xpansis 

p.S. he menes unkle Royse.’ ” 

“Good chance, better go!” said Aunt 
Easter briefly, as Polly finished and sat wip¬ 
ing her eyes over the part of the letter that 
was n’t out of the dictionary. 

“ Oh, I’d love to ! ” said Polly fervently, 
“ But—somehow—I can’t bear to take so 
much from that good Mr. Royce, who is al- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


211 


ways giving so much to everybody. Should 
you ? I do n’t suppose the ‘ expansis,’ as 
Jacky calls them, would come a cent under 
twenty dollars the round trip. Of course 
that has been the trouble for the last six 
months. I have n’t felt as if I could possibly 
spare the money to take such a trip. But, 
oh, I do want to see my mother so ! ” 

In spite of itself the brown head dropped 
against the doorpost, and sobs shook the 
sturdy little shoulders. 

Aunt Easter cast a keen glance at her, and 
made some unnecessary banging of the cups 
and plates to cover up any sudden involun¬ 
tary softness. She had a lonely, affectionate, 
old yearning heart, in spite of all her vine- 
gariness, and it occurred to her to wonder if 
anybody would ever cry for her in that way. 

“ If you take my advice, you ’ll take what’s 
offered you and make no bones about it. 
You never hinted nor sot round waitin’ for 
favors. When a pear is dropped ripe and 
meller into your lap, next thing’s to eat it, 


112 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


in my opinion. Some folks ’ud go and sit 
on the shady side the house, for fear the 
Lord can’t afford so much sunshine.” 

“I’ve come for a nanser ! ” said Jacky, 
starting up from somewhere in the gathering 
dusk. “ Goin’ ? ” 

“ O Jacky, you ’re just a jewel ! ” said Polly, 
turning to him. “ And that Uncle Rovce of 
yours,—he’s ^^r-fectly lovely ! But I do n’t 
know what to say.” 

“ Say Yes,” said Jacky practically. 

“ Thing to say, my dear, when a gentle¬ 
man asks your company ! ” said a humorous 
voice beside them. “ Thee must n’t be 
coquettish with him ! He is very much in 
earnest.” 

“ How could I ever thank you ?” asked 
Polly, still hesitating. 

“ Just by going ! ” was the kind and hearty 
answer. “ It will give us both the greatest 
pleasure.” 

“Thought my letter ’d fetch her,” said 
Jacky complacently, as he walked home with 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


213 


Mr. Royce an hour later. “ If you ’ve got 
anything to say, I believe in putting it in 
writing.” 

Alone in her room, Aunt Easter drew out 
her letter and sat down to read it. “ Don’t 
b’lieve it’s a circ’lar,” she muttered. “ Had 
a kind of a notion I would n’t open it down 
there, out amongst ’em. Come over me all 
at once that the handwritin’ was most un¬ 
common like Silas Bean’s after all. He 
was a master hand at writin’ letters. He 
writ as nice as he talked, an’ that was sayin’ 
something. Now would n’t it be the stran¬ 
gest thing in the world if he should been do¬ 
ing well for the last ten or a dozen years out 
in that new country where they say money's 
plenty as rocks in cow pasters, and here in 
my old age it should pop into his head to pay 
me back some o’ the good turns I done him ! 
I declare it does seem ’most too good to be 
true, and I suppose I’m a foolish old woman 
to set here dreadin’ to break the letter open 
for fear it.should n’t be ! But it ought to be ! 


214 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

It ought to be ! I b’lieve ’t would help me 
to have some faith in human nater if a few o’ 
my good deeds when I had money should 
come back to me now when I had n’t none ! ” 

“ Aunt Easter, could you come down and 
play some games with us ? ” called Polly from 
the foot of the stairs. “We ’ve got the 
dining-room table all cleared, and we ’re 
going to have a pitched battle, three on a 
side, if you ’ll come.” 

“Yes, in a minute, child,” said Aunt 
Easter, with her lonesome old heart in a 
warm flutter at the attention, as Polly meant 
it should be. “ I ’ll just read this letter 
first, ” she said to herself, tearing off the end 
of the envelope. 

Five minutes later Polly, who kept her in 
mind, came up to coax her, and finding the 
door ajar, pushed it gently open. Aunt 
Easter was standing by the little light-stand, 
holding a big, lawyer-like epistle in her hand, 
to which her eyes seemed glued, while her 
hand seemed to have the shaking palsy. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2I 5 


“ He says it’s mine ! A whole house all 
mine ! Not one room, not even a room with 
three windows—and a chimly-place—and a 
pear tree—but a house , Polly ! I can’t take 
it in any more than the man in the moon ! ” 
“ Is it from Silas Bean, after all ?” cried 
Polly joyfully, running to look over her 
shoulder. “ Has he remembered at last the 
things you’ve done for him ? ” 

“ No, Polly,” said Aunt Easter, with a 
curiously humble expression all at once, as 
she turned to pick up a scrap of another sheet 
that had fallen. “ That is the strange thing 
about it. This letter is none o’ Silas Bean’s 
doin’s. Where he is the Lord knows—I 
hope ! But this letter is from a little girl I 
hain’t thought of this twenty years hardly; 
an’ more, too ! years an’ years before I ever 
saw your father or your mother or any of 
you !—when I worked side by side with her 
in a dressmaker’s shop, and she had the 
waists to face and finish. This letter wants 
to know if I remember takin’ hold an’ help- 


216 A bunker hill failure 

in’ her nights when they was n’t done right, 
an’ she had’m to take out an’ do over. An’ 
then once, I b’lieve the letter says I stayed 
an’ did for her a day or two when she had a 
sick spell. As true as I live, Polly I do n’t 
remember it. Lots o’ things I have remem¬ 
bered and nobody else seems to—not the 
Lord nor man neither. And here this little 
thing that I never felt as if it was much, 
never thought enough of to remember, 
though now the letter calls it to mind, I can 
think how I had some good thoughts while 
I was doin’ it—this—this ”— 

Aunt Easter was too agitated to say any 
more, and Polly went up and gave her a great 
silent hug, as the best way of expressing her 
sentiments. 

“ Tell me just what the letter says—both 
of ’em,” she asked later. 

“ Why, this —the big copperplaty one—is 
the lawyer’s letter, calling me the aforesaid 
and the undersigned and the above-men¬ 
tioned and every other four-syllabled word 


.4 B UNKEIt HILL FAIL URE 217 

except my right name; but this little scrap 
of paper with the crooked writin’ in it is 
worth forty such letters, Polly, forty of ’em ! 
For this shows me that there ’s somebody 
in the world that loves me, and remembers 
me,—though why a little thing like what I 
did should make her, I do n’t see—and— 
dead ? No ! As alive as you are—though 
older,* some. Yes, she must be older ! ” said 
Aunt Easter with a sudden glance at the 
bureau glass. “ Strange how I always think 
of her as a little girl with that poor little 
quiverin’ chin when the forewoman scolded 
her, and the great big blue eyes that seemed 
to be always running over ! Well, she ’s the 
same sweet-hearted thing as ever she was, 
and she says she and her family have moved 
into a big house and don’t need this one, 
and I’m welcome to it as long as I live, and 
I can act just as if it was mine, and do any¬ 
thing I’m a mind to with it. O Polly ! I ’ll 
have a yeller pear tree right in the front of 
it! ” 


2i8 -A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

“ The boys, aunt,”—began Polly mischiev¬ 
ously. 

“ The boys may clomber up and set on 
the ridgepole ! ” declared Aunt Easter, hold¬ 
ing her chin up and her chest out in a gen¬ 
erous, expansive way that was good to see. 
“ I don’t believe I shall ever mind boys or 
anything so much again as I have minded 


CHAPTER XVI 


GOING SHARES 

“ Scanty fare for one will often 
Prove a royal feast for two.” 

\7 OU deserve it, Polly Ann ! You need n’t 
feel so crushingly grateful to all the 
universe for your good luck, for pluck is the 
mustard seed that luck grows out of ! ” 

Bert was down on his knees in front of 
Polly’s trunk, snapping the catches and tying 
it up stout and strong for the trip, for Polly 
would n’t afford a new trunk, and the old 
one had seen better days and was n’t likely 
to see many more of any kind. 

“ It always makes me raging to be called 
Polly Ann, and you know it,” said Polly un¬ 
gratefully. 

“ I know it, Polyanthus. There’s such a 

lot of things that do it. But speaking of work 
219 


220 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


and keeping up a good heart and all that, I 
will say ”— 

“ No, you need n’t,” said Polly, blushing 
under his praise, which was nevertheless 
very sweet to her ; “ I was so chicken-hearted 
when I first came here, that if it had n’t been 
for *— 

“ Me ! ” suggested Bert complacently. 

“ Doddie, I ’d ’a’ died. But I remem¬ 
bered what papa used to say about work, and 
went at it. It has helped, but the praise is 
to papa and not me, if I’ve been any good 
or done anything. I pity the boys and girls 
that did n’t have him to talk to them.’ 

“ Would you mind telling me some of it 
—a little ? ” asked Bert respectfully, casting 
a side glance at the sweet, serious face Polly 
always wore when she was speaking of her 
papa. “ I have mine, you know, but then ”— 

“ Oh ! Uncle Jarvis ! ” said Polly quickly. 
“Why, Bert, you know I did n’t mean to 
say a word against him ! I only meant ”— 

“ Course ! I know ! But really I always 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


221 


thought there was nobody to beat Uncle 
David, in some ways, only I did n’t know 
him much.” 

“ There was n’t,” said Polly simply. “ But 
it would n’t be interesting to tell over second¬ 
hand. I only want—hope—that is, it’s my 
great ambition, to live it out so, some of it, 
that folks will know without saying, and be 
the better for it. I think that’s the way we 
ought to pass on the good things we ’re told 
—just live them ! ” 

“There, sir! that trunk’s strapped for 
earth’s remotest bound ! ” said Bert, dusting 
his trousers-knees, and standing the much- 
becorded box on end in the entry, ready for 
the expressman. “ Which I wish to remark, 
Polly, that whether or not I’ve ‘ buckled to,’ 
in father’s phrase, this last year or so, I know 
somebody that has, and it's been the greatest 
help to me.” 

“ Glad of it, though I have n’t an idea what 
you mean,” said Polly. “ 1 Important, if true,’ 
as they say. S’pose you mean Mr. Pickles ? ” 


222 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“Partly,” said Bert, laughing. “But I 
mean the money and the ‘ Normal/ and the 
—the lonesomeness.” 

For a boy Bert was rather delicately ap¬ 
preciative. 

“Well,” said Polly mischievously, “of 
course the only decent thing for me is to 
1 strike back ’ after all that, and tell you what 
a smart boy I think you are and all—lately ! 
Honest and true, Bert, I did n’t use to think 
you were so very ! You won’t mind my 
saying it now f Kind of a good-natured, 
lazy, easy-going fellow ”— 

“ Come now ! ” cried Bert, reddening and 
laughing. 

“ —no special force to you anyway ”— 

“ Good land o’ Goshen ! ” cried Bert, who 
had not tied his necktie for a full-sized photo¬ 
graph. 

“—but the makings of a man in you, if 
anybody could get you to take hold and 
finish it ! I often think folks are a good deal 
like anagrams or the alphabet game ; good 


A BUNKER BILL FAILURE 223 

words in ’em, if they ’ll go to work and put 
the letters together right.” 

“ There’s the expressman ! ” said Bert, 
snatching the trunk handle, while Polly 
picked up her gloves and parasol and satchel 
and book to read. Aunt Easter handed her 
a lunch-basket and Phil a bouquet and a few 
other little things, so that she was not quite 
unencumbered when she met Jacky at the 
station, and did not blame him for suggest¬ 
ing that she go in the baggage car. 

“ I ’ve got to say good-bye ! ” said Polly, 
catching her breath, as if she were going to 
the dentist, “I hate ’em ” (kissing right and 
left to get through with it as soon as possi¬ 
ble). “ They take anaesthetics for every¬ 
thing but that, Aunt Marian ! ” she said 
plaintively. “ What makes ’em leave out 
the worst one ? ” 

It was over at last, and they saw her 
whirled off in a cloud of gritty dust that 
made them all glad to get back into the 
house, where screens and curtains shut out 


224 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


some of it. Besides, Bert and Aunt Easter 
had some work to do. 

It had taken her a solid week to coax him 
into it, and even then he felt that he had a 
right to be unforgiving. Who was Aunt 
Easter to take away their Polly ? That was 
the secret of his unusual demonstrativeness 
at parting. Deep down in his heart he had 
a feeling that the clocks all ticked, “Never 
—forever,” and each individual pendulum 
had a language that Longfellow never 
thought of. “Never” any more Polly in 
that house ! “ Forever ” he should re¬ 

member what she had been in it! Nobody 
had dared to tell Doddie and Phil what 
Aunt Easter was thinking of, but the plan 
had been talked over when they were abed, 
in full family council, and the worst of it 
was that father approved of it, bad as it was 
all around (for everybody but the ones most 
concerned), and mother said with a little 
sigh that she knew it was n’t right to stand 
in the child’s way, though she had been 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 22 $ 

such a help with the children and every¬ 
body. Bert wondered if that was “ short ” 
in her mind for anybody in particular. 

The plan was this, in a nutshell. 

“ It ’s a great big house for one woman ! ” 
said Aunt Easter in the anxious dignity of 
a householder. “ There’s six good rooms 
and a cubby-closet. And it’s quite near to 
the ‘Normal’ pleasant days; and when it 
rains the cars go right by the head of the 
street.” 

“Thoughtful of the car company!” said 
Bert, who felt mean and “ talked mean.” 

“ Another thing to think of is that mother 
of hers,” went on Aunt Easter, without 
minding him. “ Polly’s been reading me 
some of her letters from the folks she ’s 
with. She ’s pretty well and comfortable 
now, but two words o’ one o’ them letters 
would show you how caperble she is to look 
out for herself and manage and so. And 
top o’ that, they do n’t really want her there 
any longer. No, they do n’t say so exactly, 


22 6 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

but you can read an’ run, as the Bible says, 
and sometimes I think it’s your bounden 
dooty to.” 

“Where would she run to?” asked 
Bert, thoroughly out of temper. “ You 
never would bind yourself down to taking 
care of a sick woman, most of all a make- 
believe sick one.” 

“ Be still, Bert! ” said father quietly. “ I 
do n’t call her a make-believe invalid at all. 
Nerves are as real as bones and gristle. 
Still, there is no denying, aunt, that it would 
be undertaking a great care at your age ; 
for I suppose that is what you are driving 
at. Of course I appreciate the self-denying 
spirit.” 

“ Self-denying fiddlesticks ! ” said Bert, 
flinging himself out of the room. “ All she 
wants is to get hold of Polly ! And I ’d 
like to know what the house is going to do 
without her ! ” 

Bert was partly right, and father was 
partly right, and Aunt Easter was all right! 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 227 

The truth was that Aunt Easter, back of all 
the pleasure she hoped for from Polly’s 
fresh young company, ’way down below all 
the novelty and importance of being a 
householder and able to offer hospitality to 
anybody, had a divine stirring in her hungry 
old heart to be again of use to somebody, 
really make her little spot in the world 
brighter for being in it. There is no use in 
trying to label everybody as they do the 
trees in the public gardens or the speci¬ 
mens in a mineral cabinet. Stones stay 
stones, but people change from time to 
time, when there is impulse enough, inside 
or outside. The boy you think lazy and 
good-for-nothing to-day is likely enough to 
take a start and turnout an energetic, useful 
man, and there is nothing to hinder the 
idle, frivolous girl from being a Sister Dora. 
Not that they often do. The tendency is 
all the other way. But the unexpected 
sometimes happens, through some disci¬ 
pline or other. A fisherman might write 


228 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

down in his diary that lobsters are green, 
but a landsman could tell him that after 
getting into hot water they are quite an¬ 
other color. It is apt to be the same way 
with people. 

Some such thoughts as these came to 
Aunt Easter’s housemates during the month 
or two that followed her good fortune. Her 
real good-heartedness came to the top, and 
it was hard to avoid some appreciative refer¬ 
ence to it now and then. Bert said she 
was like Aaron’s rod that budded ; up to 
now she had been either a stick or a 
serpent. 

“ I want to ‘ go shares—half and half ’! ” 
she said in allusion to one of Doddie’s gen¬ 
erous sayings; and finally Bert came round 
handsomely and agreed to aid and abet her 
to the best of his ability. One considera¬ 
tion that helped to this end was the fact 
which he happened to think of, that he him¬ 
self would soon be off to college and out of 
the home nest, so that personally Polly’s 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


229 

absence would not make so much differ¬ 
ence. But there were still Phil and Doddie 
to settle with. 

“ You must n’t forget that Polly has n’t a 
great deal of money,” cautioned father 
thoughtfully ; “ perhaps not much more 
than enough to keep her mother. Of 
course it would be all right if she stayed 
here. But I should be sorry for you to 
have any unlooked-for expense coming on 
you. You must look out for that.” 

“ Enough for one’s a plenty for two! ” 
returned Aunt Easter, whose ideas had 
broadened wonderfully. “ I ain’t afraid, 
and besides, the way that girl’s going on, 
’t won’t be more than a year or two before 
she ’ll be teachin’ somewhere or other and 
supportin’ the whole of us. I ’ll take the 
resk.” 

Polly and Bert had both been over to see 
the new house before she went away, and 
Polly had solemnly settled on the bedroom 
she wanted Aunt Easter to give her “ when 


230 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


she came a-visiting.” This was a great re¬ 
lief of mind to Aunt Easter. She went to 
work now with a great zeal, and Bert found 
himself ordered hither and yon whenever 
he showed his head out of his den (which 
was held sacred by all the family), in a way 
which gave him small leisure for anything 
but the furtherance of Aunt Easter’s plans, 
most of which included Polly. 

It was a little bit of a house, on the edge 
of the city, and it was hard to believe in the 
six rooms till you counted them ; Bert said 
they were all “ cubby-holes.” This was 
not fair, of course, but nobody expected 
Bert to be fair in this business. To Aunt 
Easter the house was a palace. It was her 
own, and that word can be stretched till it 
is as large as the universe. 

Letters kept coming from the real owner 
of the house, full of regret that she had not 
“discovered” Aunt Easter till half a con¬ 
tinent lay between them, and promising a 
good long visit when she “ came east ” 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 3 1 


again. To her, Aunt Easter told her widen¬ 
ing plans; a letter by return mail, in the 
course of a week or so, gave her permission 
to go over the house, which was not yet 
fully dismantled and affix her own tag and 
label to any household articles that pleased 
her, if that would help her in setting up 
housekeeping for herself and her family. 
All these things helped to build the nest, 
and Aunt Easter was skillful at the weaving. 

“ What you getting Polly’s things all over 
here for, Aunt Easter ? ” demanded Phil ; 
and Doddie chimed in with, “Why does 00 
for , Aun’ Teaster ?” 

“ I’m—some expectin’—to have her visit 
me a spell, when she gets home ! ” said Aunt 
Easter cautiously. She had no idea of tell¬ 
ing it all out to two such unprincipled news¬ 
mongers. 

“ Oh !” said Phil, and drew his own con¬ 
clusions. 

The looks of things were far from pleasing 
him. Polly’s pretty chamber looked as bare 


232 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


as an old barn, with nothing in it but the 
regular furniture that had been there when 
she came. She was one of those girls who 
attract pretty things by a sort of natural 
magnetism, and every woodland walk or 
seaside outing lent its quota of treasures. 
Polly’s “ things ” would have made any room 
seem crowded. 

“ Wish’t Jacky was where I could tell him 
’bout it ! ” said Phil disconsolately wander¬ 
ing through the empty spaces. “ Bert’s 
all right, if ever you get him out of his shell, 
but I would n’t give two cents for a fellow, 
once he begins to go to college ! ” 


CHAPTER XVII 


PHIL AND OTHER FOLKS 


“ Be good to yourself ; it is the best way of being good to 
other people. * ’ 



IMME this attic when you ’re done 


with it ? ” 

Bert looked round from the big box of 
books he was packing, and stared at Phil 
absent-mindedly a half-minute or so before 
he could take in the sense of his request. 
Packing needs a sound and disposing mind 
and memory, and after the first layer of books 
and things Bert was n’t at all sure'that he 
came up to the requirements. 

“ This attic ? So far as I have the be¬ 
queathing of it, my son, I Ve no objection. 
What you going to do with it ? ” 

“ Oh, leave it where’t is ! ” said Phil, as 
if on the whole he had decided not to be too 


234 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


radical and tear it away from its environ¬ 
ment. 

“ That’s a good idea,” said Bert, upsetting 
his box and starting to pack it over again. 
“ Did n’t know but you intended to tote it 
off somewhere.” 

“No,” said Phil, “only I’m thinking of 
moving up here, you know, after you ’re gone, 
and prepare for college. It seems to be a 
pretty good place to do that in, do n’t you 
think so, Bert ? ” 

“ Pretty good place ! ” said Bert, thinking 
of all the “preparing” he had done there, 
and the other things that had happened since 
he took possession. “ Any place is good 
enough if you get the right kind of a boy to 
put in it.” 

“ Yes, I s’pose so ! ” said Phil, depositing 
a big box of old leather balls, tennis rackets, 
two baseball face-masks, and a few other such 
things at the foot of Bert’s bed, in the farther 
corner. He had no idea of waiting for dead 
men’s shoes, so to speak, and having received 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


235 


permission to occupy in the near future, 
thought he might as well take the prelimi¬ 
nary steps toward possession. “Yes, I s 'pose 
so!” he drawled again. “ That’s what Weskit 
says, anyhow.” 

“ Weskit ! What do you know about 
Weskit ? ” 

“Jacky knows him! ” said Phil, as if that 
were enough said. 

“Jacky? Well, you aren’t Jacky. And 
I’d like to know how you’d be going round 
where you would ever happen to see him ?” 

“ Well, lots o’ times he’s hanging round 
Mr. Royce’s store lately. Wants me to in- 
in -interduce him, he says. He wants a 
place—the place you’ve got done with.” 

Bert sat down on his box and laughed. 
Somehow the idea was irresistibly comical. 
He had a vision of “Weskit,” tall and broad, 
dark, shaggy-maned, and with a general air 
of having knocked around the world until 
he liked it, being brought up and “ introduced” 
by this fair-haired, six-year-old mite of a man 


236 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

in his first trousers. He looked and laughed, 
and looked and laughed again. 

“ I s’pose you know what you’re laughing 
at,” said Phil, nettled more at the look than 
the laugh, though both were open to resent¬ 
ment. “ I interduced you , and you can’t 
say I did n’t. Where’d you been, I should 
like to know, if it had n’t been for me and 
Mr. Royce?” 

This was unanswerable, and Bert reached 
over a long arm and took the disturbed little 
fellow on his knee in a big-brotherly fashion 
that Phil was very fond of, though he was at 
the age when promiscuous petting is resented. 

“ Do n’t he be mad with his brother! ” 
purred Bert, stroking Phil’s humpy back hair 
that stuck out in a rough, bunchy tangle that 
no brush or comb could reduce to smooth¬ 
ness. “ I know perfectly well that you are a 
person of influence. But what does Weskit 
want and why does he want it ? ” 

“ Well, he’s got a nidear of going to col¬ 
lege, same’s I have,” said Phil confiden- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


237 


tially. “We’ve talked it over a good deal. 
He thinks you ’re just grand, Bert.” 

“ He does, eh! ” said Bert, turning back 
to the books. “ What leads him to form 
that opinion ? ” 

“Well I did some, I s’pose,” said Phil, 
modestly. “ I told him a lot o’ things, you 
know—not secrets—I would n’t tell those, 
would I, Bert ?” 

“ Not if I can help it,” said Bert, resolv¬ 
ing that taciturnity should be his motto. 

“ But about the prize you did n’t get, and 
Mr. Royce helping you, and how much you 
think o’ Polly”— 

“ Philip Dunbar Whitcomb ! ” 

“ Well, you do, and what’s the use of 
denying it? and so do I, and she’s our 
cousin, and there ain’t anybody else got half 
so much right to like her and be proud of 
her and”— 

How many more “ ands ” Phil might have 
strung on the thread of that sentence will 
never be known, for, as has happened once 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


238 

before in the course of our history, the 
younger son of the family was unceremoni¬ 
ously bundled downstairs without the aid of 
the ladder. Bert was gentle-handed enough 
and took care to get a good grip of his coat- 
collar before he lowered him through the 
trapdoor, reaching half his body length so 
that Phil’s toes should not lack many inches 
of touching the floor when he dropped finally. 
Then he shut down the trap and turned the 
button. 

“That boy would be the ruin of any re¬ 
spectable family! ” he declared, flinging 
around his goods in a way that rejoiced the 
heart of Phil under the ladder, telling as it 
did so plainly the state of mind he was in. 

After awhile he decided that packing was 
n’t the best sort of business for a hot after¬ 
noon, and taking his cap started out for a 
stroll down to the lake in the hope of meet¬ 
ing Dick or Larkin or some of the other 
fellows. 

“ Say, my young friend, do you intend to 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 239 

swing along at that pace all day ? ” called a 
voice he knew behind him, “ F ve got a 
good walking outfit o’ my own, but I give 
up if you mean if for anything more ’n 
sprinting.” 

Bert looked round pleasantly at sound of 
the chaffing voice, and slackened up a little 
to let Weskit catch up with him. He had 
nothing against the fellow, and liked his 
hearty ways better than those of some 
people. 

“I’ve chased you clear from your own 
front gate,” said Weskit, laughing. 

“ Must have been anxious to see me,” said 
Bert wonderingly. “ What’s up ? ” 

“ You are, ain’t you?” said the other 
quizzically. “ If all accounts are true—that 
little brother’s of yours, for instance.” 

Bert ground his heel into the sand and 
grew as red as Weskit’s necktie, which that 
day was particularly flaming. 

“ He’s got a tongue like a mill clapper,” 
he answered in a vexed tone. “ But I do n’t 


240 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


suppose anything less than cutting it out by 
the roots would do any good to it.” 

“ You need n’t complain,” said Weskit 
bluntly. “ I declare if I had anybody to talk 
me up as well as that snipe does you, I’d 
have a better show in the world than I’ve 
got now.” 

“ He’s all right,” muttered Bert, a little 
ashamed of his heat. He remembered what 
a loyal little fellow Phil was after all, and 
wished he had n’t pitched him down the 
ladder. 

“He says you ’re going to start for college 
next week,” said Weskit, coming to the point 
and dropping his air of chaff and banter. 

“ Yes,” said Bert, wondering what interest 
that could have for this boy. Then he 
remembered Phil’s item of information. 
Weskit was thinking of the place he left and 
wanted it. “You want to follow suit and 
take up my trade ? ” he added, smiling. 

“ I do n’t know what your trade is going to 
be,” said Weskit seriously, “ but I take it a 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


241 


good education is the first step to any kind 
of a one. If that’s so, the next thing is to 
get one. I’m going to be somebody.” 

“ Good for you, Weskit ! ” said Bert, hold¬ 
ing out his hand frankly. “ First time I 
said that, it lifted me square out o’ the mud ! ” 

“ Take more ’n one saying to do it for me, 
I guess ! ” returned Weskit, with a good 
squaring of his shoulders, as if he meant 
to do something besides saying. 

“ Well ; you do n’t suppose it’s been all 
‘ talkee-talkee ’ with me do you ? Only—a 
fellow do n’t go round every day telling how 
the Lord has delivered him ‘ out of the 
mouth o’ the lion and out of the paw of the 
bear ’ ! That old garret room of mine has 
seen some hard work done up there, now I 
tell you.” 

“ Should n’t wonder a bit ! ” said Weskit, 

switching off the heads of the golden-rods 

with a stick he had. “ Makes me laugh to 

hear you talk about ‘ hard work ’ with a 

father and mother o’ your stripe to back 
16 


242 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


you ! Oh, it’s all right ! ” he nodded, as 
Bert gave him a sharp look to see what 
he meant. “ Comes in for you somewhere, 
I dare say. Does for everybody. Shoe 
pinches somewhere, toe or heel. But that 
day I come in there and saw your mother 
bending over the bed with that kid in it, and 
thought o’ the way I’d always been knocked 
round, an’ nobody to pick me up again ”— 

“Your mother?” ventured Bert softly, 
because the long pause had to be filled up 
somehow. 

“ Dead,” said Weskit briefly. 

Bert did n’t dare to say, “ Your father ? ” 
but Weskit told him. 

“ Drunk, mostly, my father was, long’s I 
had one. Sorry I can ’t shin up my jenny- 
logical tree any higher ! ” he added with 
a bitter laugh that worried Bert and made 
him feel as if he had been bragging about 
his relations, though he knew he had n’t 
mentioned them. “ There wa ’n’t any more 
of ’em except a little feller—’bout the big o’ 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


243 


Jacky when I first saw him ; kicked round 
some, like him. One day he got kicked a 
little too hard and ‘ laid him down to sleep/ 
as I heard your mother telling Jacky one 
night when I dropped in to see him. Oh, 
yes, I ’ve got a calling ’ quaintance with your 
mother ! ” he added as Bert opened his eyes 
wide at him. 

“ Why did n’t you ever call on me ? ” asked 
Bert heartily. There was something inter¬ 
esting about this boy, and he wished he had 
time to cultivate his acquaintance. 

“ You never asked me ! ” said Weskit 
bluntly. “ She did. Seemed to think I was 
worth saving, and kep’ hold o’ me till I 
thought so, too. I never cared about any¬ 
body before since the little un died. Glad he 
did ! That’s why I never could bear to see a 
baby banged round. That’s what made me 
take to you so when you had Jacky hanging 
over your arm that night. Thought to my¬ 
self, ‘ There’s a fellow’s had some o’ my 
bringing up to give him a kind o’ feller feel- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


244 

ing, you know ! 1 ' But I found’t was n’t 
zactly altogether so when I come to know 
your folks, and so on.” 

“ No,” said Bert soberly, “ it was more 
the other thing—seeing them loved and cared 
for—that made me hate to see anybody abuse 
children. We came to the same place by 
different roads, that’s all.” 

“ I want you to get me your place at 
Royce’s,” said Weskit. “ He’s coming home 
next week, and’t ain’t filled yet. I’ve sort 
o’ kep’ track o’ things round there. There 
’s a fellow in there, but he ain’t a perma¬ 
nent.” 

“ You call that a step up ?” queried Bert 
doubtfully. “He can’t pay so much as 
you ’re getting at the shop.” 

“It’s ‘up’ for me,” said Weskit firmly. 
“ I’m sick o’ the swearing and the rough 
talk. It ’ll give me time to study evenings, 
as well as the other. Anything better comes 
along I ’ll take it.” 

“ I ’ll speak to him, certainly,” promised 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 245 

Bert. “ He ’ll be glad to get you, I do n’t 
doubt. About the studying, now ! Would 
my books be any help to you ? They ’re 
secondhand, of course, but you ’re welcome 
to them. Books cost.” 

“You better believe they do ! ” said Weskit 
with a curious amendment that gave the ef¬ 
fect of a hiccough. “ Look a-here ! ” pulling 
a book from under his jacket. “ That cost 
me a day’s wages ! ” 

“ My father’d believe you ! ” said Bert, 
laughing. “ Many’s the book bill he’s footed 
for me, and there’s Phil coming on. Think¬ 
ing of him, by the way, maybe I ’ll lend the 
books instead of giving them, as some of 
them may not be too old style by the time 
Phil gets round to using them. I left him 
preparing for college or making arrange¬ 
ments to.” 

“ I do n’t want anything you ’ll need for 
him, you know ! ” said Weskit anxiously. 

“ Pshaw ! You can travel over a road 
without tearing up the highway. What’s 


246 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

that you have there ? An algebra ? Gone 
far in that ?” 

Weskit showed him. 

“You mean to say you’ve done it through 
that far ? And understand it ? ” said Bert 
unbelievingly. Mathematics were not his 
strong point, and to his mind Weskit’s pro¬ 
ficiency, if it were genuine, savored of 
genius. 

“ Try me ! ” said Weskit briefly, after his 
fashion of coming to the point without wast¬ 
ing words over it. 

After a few minutes Bert sprang up from 
the gray bowlder they had been sitting on 
and gave Weskit another hearty hand-shake. 

“ No trouble about you, old fellow! ” he 
cried. “I’d give my old shoes to have the 
head on me you have ! Where did you get 
such a start ? ” 

“Well, the head come natural, I s , pose! ,, 
laughed Weskit. “ At least, I did n’t make 
it ! Some folks like figures, you know, and 
some do n’t; and then — I’ve been going to 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


247 


night school right along, oh, ever since I 
knew your mother.” 

“ How did she get you to ? ” asked Bert 
curiously. 

“ Do you suppose I would n’t crawl to 
Patagonia and back again if she should ask 
me?” demanded Weskit, as a matter of 
simple information. 

“ I see,” said Bert. “ She’s put more than 
you on the track before now. But it is n’t 
every one that starts out to make a man of 
himself as well as you do, to pay for it.” 

“ She never told me to do that,” said 
Weskit simply. “ She said to give myself 
to Christ, and he’d make a man of me ; and 
I expect he’s going to do it.” 

The boy’s strong, dark face was lighted 
with a kind of exulting conviction that made 
Bert think of Bible texts. 

“ Come over and get the books,” he said. 
“ I shall be at home any time after supper.” 

“Wish I had been the one to get that fel¬ 
low started,” said Bert enviously, as he walked 


248 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

on alone. “ They talk about ‘ jewels in your 
crown/ and mother’s got him, sure ! All 
the same, I wish I had ever done him a little 
good my own self.” 

“ If it had n’t been for that fellow,” mut¬ 
tered Weskit, switching all the golden-rods 
he had missed on the way up, “ I do n’t know 
as I would ever had a thought higher than 
that cow there — contented to eat and sleep 
and brush the flies off ! But he seemed to 
set to work somehow as if there was some¬ 
thing worth doing in the world, and he 
meant to be one to help do it. I tell you, 
I’m getting to think the best way to make 
anybody want to buy goods is to show ’em 
a sample.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


TOM 

“ If there be some weaker one, 

Give me strength to help him on.” 

"pOM ’ S going back to college ! ” 

It was two days before Bert had to 
start, and he had come over to Aunt 
Easter’s on an errand. That was how he 
happened to be standing where he could 
hear Susie Pickles talking to Polly in the 
upper entry. Polly had come home and 
brought her mother with her, and there 
had been a housewarming, and the Normal 
girls had given Polly a surprise party, and— 
but you can ’t get everything into one book. 
Aunt Easter’s world was the pinkest shade 
of rose color. 

Bert listened with both ears to the girlish 
voice in the upper entry. Aunt Easter 

249 


25 ° 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


was giving him the “ receipt ” for “ lemon- 
rhubarb ” that mother had forgotten how 
to put together. 

“ You take a cup er sugar, tell her, and 
one cup o’ chopped rhubarb, after it ’s 
peeled and the stringy part cut off-” 

“ Yes,” said the musical, plaintive voice, 
answering some remark of Polly’s, “ father 
thought he’d better ; and I begged him to, 
for the sake of mother, you know. It’s hard 
for him to go back where the fellows all 
know; but a thing like that has got to be 
lived down, and it can be. Anything can ! 
Of course he did a foolish thing, but ’tis n’t 
as if he was low down or mean, like some 
boys. It’s just his way of being obliging 
and saying Yes to everybody that led him 
into it. As for those professors that-” 

“ The best way is to chop ’em all up into 
inch pieces,” went on Aunt Easter, trying 
to speak with energy enough to fix Bert’s 
wandering eyes and impress it upon his 
memory. “ Mix ’em all up with plenty o’ 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 251 

sugar—they 11 stand any amount o’ sweeten- 

ening,—then take two eggs-” 

“ —should n’t worry half so much about 
him if he had one good friend to stand by 
him,” said Susie. “ But you see he just 
dropped, and he never was much of a 
scholar anyway, so it’s all beginning right 
over for him. He may fall in with the right 
sort of boys and he may not. If any of 

them should tempt that poor boy again-” 

“ —beat ’em well,—till your arm aches,” 
said Aunt Easter, meaning the eggs. “ Two 
spoonsfuls o’ lemon extract and a dust o’ 
flour to keep ’em from running out all over 
creation, and if that don 1 succeed all right, 
call on me, and I ’ll come over.” 

Bert thanked her absently and started 
home with his head full of Tom and Susie. 
It was not till he turned in at his own gate 
that he so much as thought of rhubarb. 

He did the straight, manly thing about it. 
Some fellows would have higgled at it and 
guessed and pretended to remember, and 


252 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

stuck to it that Aunt Easter had mixed up 
the professors and the rhubarb and so on in 
the way they were mixed in his mind, but 
Bert did no such thing. He just told his 
mother all about it. 

“ Go and see Tom/’ she said anxiously. 
“ Do see if you can’t put a little hope and 
courage into the poor boy. Tell him you 'll 
stand by him. What better thing can you 
do in all your college course ? Think of it, 
Bert ; he has n’t any mother ! ” 

It was that last consideration that settled 
his mind for him. Tom and Weskit were 
innocently conspiring to help him prize his 
mother. 

He did not make a formal matter of it by 
going to the Pickleses. In Tom’s place he 
felt as if he might not exactly like to have 
anybody come and offer him a protective 
friendship. But he meant to help that 
pretty little Susie Pickles out some way or 
other. 

As luck would have it they rode up to- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 253 

gether—Bert and Tom, I mean, and up to 
the college. Tom sat a little apart by him¬ 
self, not quite so chatty as usual. Shame 
has a bad effect on a person’s manner. 

“ Room for me ? ” said Bert, bustling into 
the empty seat and giving his grip a toss up 
to the hatrack. 

Tom brightened visibly. 

“That you, Bert? I thought you went 
earlier. Susie said she—ah—heard you were 
going to.” 

“Polly told her, I suppose,” said Bert 
composedly. “ I did plan to, but concluded 
to wait—for some reasons. Dick went yes¬ 
terday.” 

“ Dick—oh, he was going to room with 
you. I remember,” said Tom, relapsing 
into gloom. He was wondering what sort 
of a fellow he would have to take up with. 
Last year he had the pick of everybody not 
previously bespoken. 

“ He was,” said Bert, answering, “ but—I 
believe there’s somebody else he’s got on 


254 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

his mind, and he thought I would n’t care. 
I’ve got to look round, I s’pose. It’s mean 
business.” 

Tom made a little involuntary movement 
to speak, then settled back as if he had re¬ 
ceived a rebuff. His conscience was always 
snubbing him. 

“ Rather leaves me in the lurch,” said Bert 
hypocritically. He did not think it neces¬ 
sary to detail then and there the talk he and 
Dick had had together, nor the agreement 
they had made to “stand by” to the best 
of their ability, whatever that amounted to. 
The first practical outcome of this resolution 
had been to break up their nice little scheme 
of rooming together. Resolutions are fine 
things. The working out is apt to have a 
good deal in it that is petty and irritating. 
But Bert and Dick, having accepted the gen¬ 
eral idea of cross-bearing, were not always 
bothering around with tape-measures. They 
took it for granted that the cross that was 
handed out was just the right size for them. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 55 


“Too bad,” said Tom sympathetically. 
“ But I would n’t worry. You ’ll have the 
best there is going.” 

Tom was Tom still, and could not help 
the gracious word, so free from shade of 
envy. It almost made Bert love him. 

“ Got your eye on somebody, of course ?” 
said Bert, stooping down to flick his 
patent leathers with his pocket handker¬ 
chief. 

“ No,” said Tom, looking out of the car 
window. 

“ Would—you would n’t like to try it on 
me, would you?” asked Bert nervously. 
For a moment he felt almost mean in forcing 
himself on anybody in this underhand fash¬ 
ion. It is impertinent in some persons to 
try to do good to you. Love is the only 
honest ground of kindness. 

Tom’s face as he turned it from the win¬ 
dow was enough to set any such squeamish¬ 
ness at rest forever. He was a grateful, affec¬ 
tionate fellow, easy to lead or turn, with 


256 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

friendly, girlish ways about him. But he 
was no fool, either. 

“ I heard you on a prize speaking once., 
Bert ! ” he answered irrelevantly. 

“ The one I failed on ? ” asked Bert 
pleasantly, glad for the first time in his life 
that he had a failure to refer to. It seemed, 
somehow, to make talking easier. 

“ Yes, you failed ! ” said Tom slowly. 
“ They called it failing. Kind of forgot, you 
know, and could n’t go back to pick yourself 
up right away—not till they had noticed— 
some of them. Folks do that, in the world 
sometimes, do n’t you know ? Generally 
that’s all there is to it. It has to go as a 
dead failure! But yours was different. I’ve 
been thinking a lot about it lately. All at 
once you gritted your teeth and went on !— 
grandly—better than you begun—so that the 
whole house cheered you ! And ever since, 
folks have remembered that speaking ! No¬ 
body thinks of it as a failure. It was one of 
the Bunker Hill kind of failures that they 


.4 BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 57 


make monuments to. And that ’s what 
made me give in to father and Susie, and 
start in back here again ! Maybe—I’m going 
to see, anyhow—maybe I can make folks 
forget the break I made, same’s you did ! ” 
“You ’ve got the stuff in you, Tom!” 
cried Bert, throwing an arm over the back 
of the car seat, and casually over Tom’s back 
at the same time. “ You ought to hear my 
father ding away at me about that failure ! 
He says I ’ve got to try the Kellogg. That 
comes on this first year, you know. If I 
do n’t rag the whole lot, I believe he ’ll turn 
me outdoors ! I’m glad you are n’t one of 
the easy-die kind, either. Say, now, it’s a 
compact, is it ? Room with me ? All right! 
I ’ll drive you daft with my practising, and 
you may—do what you ’re a mind to. Stick 
by me, and I ’ll stick by you! We ’ll show 
folks that you can live in the Year One if 

you want to ! ” 
r 7 


CHAPTER XIX 


polly’s party 



OLLY had just finished her invitations 


and was sealing them with speckled 
bronze sealing wax out of the pretty box that 
Aunt Easter had given her in anticipation of 
just such necessities. Jacky and Phil came 
along as she was putting out her tiny candle 
and putting on the box cover. 

“ What’s ‘ R. S. V. P.’ ? ” asked Jacky, 
picking up a discarded sheet with those letters 
appended to the invitation like a postscript. 

Polly deigned no answer. 

“ Rats, snakes, vipers, and pollywogs,” he 
said, helping himself to a meaning. “ But I 
do n’t see what you want that on every one 
for. What’s it stand for ?” 

“ It’s so they ’ll answer,” laughed Polly, 
gathering the snowy heaps into neat, square- 


258 


A RUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 59 


edged piles and putting on her hat and sack 
preparatory to going out with them. “ It’s 
French for ‘ Reply if you please/ Jacky.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Jacky respectfully. “ I should 
think you’d say ‘ R. I. Y. P.’ then, so they’d 
understand it. Say, Polly, you’d better let 
me ’n’ Phil stribit those envlups like we do 
’lection flyers and soshble tickets. We know 
how. You just shy ’em int’ the front entry 
and ring the bell as if you was pulling a fire- 
alarm, and then kite on to the next one. ” 

“ Thank you,” said Polly. “ I think I ’ll 
see these safe into the post-office. But you 
can come along, both of you, and see me do it.” 

“What s there going to be to the party 
besides cake ? ” asked Phil, who had been 
peeking. 

“ Lots,” said Polly, beaming benevolently 
at the two knickerbocker knights as they es¬ 
corted her to the post-office. “ I ’ve thought 
up any quantity of games for you boys, and 
I depend on you to make things go off well. 
You will, won’t you ? ” 


260 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“ Yes, sir-ee ! ” duetted the boys promptly. 

“ Because you see,” said Polly plaintively, 
“ Bert’s gone, and Susie says Tom can’t 
possibly get any more cuts this year, and 
there is n’t anybody. Dick would have 
come along with Bert, too, if I could only 
have managed to be born some other time o’ 
year.” 

“ Never you mind,” began Jacky loyally, 
“we ’ll see you through.” 

“ I’m afraid it won’t go off well,” said 
Polly dolefully. “You see, not having any 
of the boys here makes it so hard to plan 
anything. I depend on those boys. I know 
it’s going to be as flat as soda water without 
any fizz to it.” 

“Well, you can croak when you give your 
mind to it, can’t you ? ” said Jacky admiringly. 
“ You just stop worrying and be thankful for 
the boys you’ve got. There’s me ’n’ Phil 
and Wes and lots of other ones that I know ; 
and there’s father and—oh, yes, there’s 
Uncle Royce ! I ’ll have a talk with Uncle 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 261 

Royce ; you see ’f I do n’t. You need n’t 
worry ’bout your party, Polly. There ’ll be 
boys enough.” 

“ What you got in your head now ?” asked 
Polly anxiously. “Do n’t you go to having 
any secrets and spoil things.” 

“ Not a spoil,” promised Jacky, making 
himself into a cartwheel as a vent to his 
emotions, and at the same time turning her 
attention to the subject of his manners 
on the public street. Before she had time to 
return to the secrets they were at their own 
doorstep, and he kept- out of her way to the 
very hour of the party. 

“ If you want to disgrace the family by 
going down without gloves, you may,” said 
Jacky on the eventful evening, pulling out 
a pair of black kid gloves from his uncle’s 
overcoat, and proceeding to stick a set of 
sprawling fingers into them. 

“ They did n’t say to wear gloves,” pro¬ 
tested Phil, who had only been instructed 
to dress himself neatly and come down the 


262 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


back stairs to be looked over before he 
presented himself in public. 

“ Course not,” said Jacky, pulling away at 
the kids as if they had been top-boots. 
“ They ’ve got an idea we ’re infants and 
no account anyway, but I know what ’s 
proper to wear to a young lady’s party ; 
and gloves are the style.” 

“ They ’re a mile too big,” said Phil 
doubtfully, taking hold of the dangling tips, 
which were one of the signs that Jacky had 
not been exactly fitted. 

“What of that?” said Jacky, twitching 
away, “ a glove’s a glove. Uncle Royce ’ll 
never miss ’em. I should n’t wonder if he 
just walked in barehanded, but nobody 
cares what a man of that age wears. A 
younger fellow likes to be a little more up 
to date, do n’t you know ?” 

“ Well, if I- must, I must,” said Phil re¬ 
signedly. “ I hate ’em, and there ain’t any 
church or Sunday-school livin’’t would get 
me to wear ’em to it; but course this is 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


263 

Polly’s party. She does n’t be seventeen 
every day. Only all the gloves I’ve truly 
got is a pair of old ”— 

“ Do n’t make any dif what they are,” 
splitting one of the black gloves clear 
across the back. “ And I ’ll give you a 
pointer. Do n’t you say gloves to any o’ 
the folks downstairs, nor show ’em to any¬ 
body ; if you do, they ’ll take ’em away from 
you. I know ’em. They ’ll put on their 
own white kids and their rat-an’-tan operys, 
and just you let ’em get an idea you are 
going to come out, too, in the same rig, and 
that’s the last you ’ll see of any gloves 
you ’ve got. Take my advice and—no, 
do n’t put your hands in your pockets that 
way. They ’ll be at you three deep to pull 
your hands out. Women hate to see a 
fellow with his hands in his pockets. Just 
carry ’em sort of easy, so—a little behind 
you. Or stick one in your jacket front. I 
seen a man do that once. He was a temp’- 
rance speaker, and he put one hand that 


264 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

way and one under his coat tails. You 
can’t because you have n’t any coat tails. 
Never mind, you ’ll do. Follow me.” 

“ But the only gloves I ”— 

“ Come down, children ! ” called mother 
in a whisper at the foot of the stairs. 
“We’re all waiting for you. It’s almost 
time to go in and speak to Polly and give 
her the present.” 

“ What’d I tell you ! ” said Jacky, giving 
Phil a push. “ Grab your gloves and go it ; 
the first pair you can lay hands on. So 
they ’re gloves it does n’t make any differ¬ 
ence what they are.” 

Polly’s party was to have been a very 
modest affair. It was Aunt Easter’s getting 
up, and so of course it was in her house, 
though all the rooms and the cubby-holes 
together were n’t big enough to accommo¬ 
date the home and school friends that Polly 
had made. She need not have feared 
any banquet-hall-deserted look about Aunt 
Easter’s festive parlor and sitting-room. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 265 

“ They have n’t got to the ice cream yet,” 
said Jacky, looking through the crack to see 
how matters were progressing. “ There’s 
only Polly and Susie Pickles standing there, 
and Polly’s mother and Aunt Easter and 
some of the women folks round. There 
has n’t any of the gentlemen come yet. We 
do n’t need to hurry. Then ’s when the 
fun ’ll begin.” 

“ Will it ? ” said Phil eagerly, imagining 
that Jacky referred to their two united ad¬ 
vents ; and perhaps he was n’t so far wrong 
either. “ Oh, I s pose you mean the cake 
an’ i-scream. Those always is fun.” 

“ Oh, ain’t you innercent ! ” said Jacky, 
screwing up his eyes and repressing a 
mad desire to tell all he knew and get 
sympathy. “ Oh, if you was n’t such a little 
kid ! ” 

“ What would you tell me, Jacky ? Say, 
what would you ? ” begged Phil, pressing up 
beseeching. “ Oh, I do love secrets best of 
anything ’cept i-scream.” 


266 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“ You ’re a baby,” said Jacky cruelly. “ Go 
play with Doddie.” 

Polly’s mother had shown oh in a lovely 
light in the preparation for this party. To 
tell the truth, the poor woman had surprised 
everybody in the last few months by falling 
into the ways of the household in a way that 
made people have to look twice at her to 
know her. She and Aunt Easter got along 
like Jack Sprat and his wife, and Polly could 
get along with anybody. So far it was an 
ideal family. 

“ You let me take the cooking off of you,” 
she begged ; and Aunt Easter, who had 
plenty of other things to attend to, let her 
please herself, considering that her pantry 
already looked like a donation party, for 
every woman in the neighborhood seemed 
to have had a favorite receipt that she wanted 
Polly to sample. Polly rejoiced over every 
loaf that came in, for she worried secretly 
lest her mother should overdo and get nerv- 


A BUNKER BILL FAILURE 267 

ous. It was the effort of Polly’s life to avert 
those two catastrophes. 

“ What’s she got on ? ” said some of the 
boys and girls whom Phil had invited, peep¬ 
ing through the door crack with them. 
“ It’s Polly by her kinky hair, but her clothes 
are diffrunt. Something shiny and fluffy 
and soft, like wings of moth millers. What 
is it, you s’pose ? ” 

“ I d’ know,” said Phil with manly indif¬ 
ference to textures and an eye for general 
effect only. “ Do n’t make any difference 
what’t is, so it looks pretty.” 

“ I know,” piped Doddie. “ Organny, the 
dressmaker called it. I heard her.” 

“ Organny or some kind of curtain stuff,” 
said Jacky. “ But you children better be 
quiet. I want to listen. There’s some¬ 
thing going to happen pretty soon. Was n’t 
that the whistle of the 8:50 down? You 
just hold your breath ten minutes and if 
you do n’t see a row and a rumpus ! ” 


CHAPTER XX 


MORE ABOUT THE PARTY 

y^Q you know your piece, Doddie ? ” 
whispered Weskit, reaching a long 
arm into the crowd of infants and extracting 
Doddie. “ Come up to the cubby-hole and 
say it over to me once more, so’s to be sure 
you won’t make a break on it.” 

“ I won’t make any bweak,” whined the 
child, who found the crack of the door and 
holding her breath by the ten minutes much 
more exciting occupations than saying 
“ Shades of Hugh Peters and John Cotton ! ” 
This “ piece ” part of the programme was 
Weskit’s idea, and would have been promptly 
frowned down by father, if he had had the 
least notion of what was going to happen. 
Some time ago it had been discovered that 
Weskit had a very good voice of his own. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 269 

and father, who always hankered to be drill¬ 
ing somebody, and especially somebody 
that could n’t pay for teachers, had set to 
work with Weskit and really congratulated 
himself that the boy had made remarkable 
progress. But one day out in the barn, 
whither Weskit had gone on some helpful 
errand for Mrs. Whitcomb, Weskit stood 
dumfounded. 

There in the middle of the floor, facing 
the horse and cow, and with no other audi¬ 
ence save two or three hens fluttering around 
her, stood three-year-old Doddie (to be pre¬ 
cise, she was exactly three years and five 
months old, lacking a few days), vigorously 
declaiming the “ Murder of Lovejoy,” by 
Wendell Phillips, in a way to have given 
what Jacky would have called pointers to 
many a stage orator who had not had her 
training. 

Her eyes blazed and she stamped her little 
foot and waved indignant gestures at poor 
dazed Moolly, sinking her voice now and then 


270 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

with tragic depth and intensity, till at “ S’ades 
of Hugh Peters ” Weskit fairly rolled on the 
floor and howled with laughter. 

Then you might have seen an indignant 
baby. 

“You ain’t p’lite!” she screamed. “You 
ain’t so p’lite’s a cow. I wiss you’d go 
away off and stay dere ! ” 

“Doddie, where did you learn that?” de¬ 
manded Weskit, sitting up and trying to wipe 
his weeping eyes. 

“ I teached it to my own self,” she said, a 
little mollified by his tone of respect and in¬ 
terest. “ Papa made you say it so muts times 
I fought I’d say it.” 

Then and there the idea entered Weskit’s 
soul to get her to say it before an audience, 
and that audience should be Polly’s party. 
The child needed no drilling, no training. 
She had caught a comically exaggerated 
emphasis and inflection, and she knew every 
word by heart. The only fear was that she 
might develop a streak of perversity, just at 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 2 ji 

the minute when he wanted to show her off, 
and refuse to open her lips. He made up 
his mind to take the risk and pledge every¬ 
thing, to the half of his kingdom, if it came 
to the point of coaxing. 

His heart sank as the child answered him 
in the whiny tone of contradiction, but he 
had reserves and drew on them. 

“ Doddie ” (there is nothing like a deep 
bass voice for seductive sweetness), “ I know 
where the freezer’s put.” 

She sidled up to him instantly, as he 
squatted on the floor at a little distance. 

“ Tell ! ” she said with her ear at his 
mouth. 

“ I will if you 11 do what I asked you.” 

“Will you unsqwoo the top so I can get 
some ? ” 

“ Yes, just a little crack, if you 11 say it.” 

“ Will you have two spoons ? ” 

“ One for you anyway, if you 11 certainly 
say it.” 

‘ ‘And cut the cake that goes with it ? ” 


272 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


Weskit nodded. 

“ A great, big, large piece—so big ? ” bar¬ 
gained the little Jew. 

“ Yes ! ” said Weskit, “ but not if you ask 
another thing. And not if you do n't say it.” 

“Well, yes, I will then,” she capitulated. 
“Yes, by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin ! 
That’s what the pig said in the story, don’t 
you ’member ? Jacky always has me say it 
when he makes me do things.” 

All at once the eloquence up in the cubby¬ 
hole was interrupted by a triple ring that 
pealed through the house like a challenge, 
followed by a loud, merry stamping of feet, 
and queer, confused exclamations and greet¬ 
ings and other sounds that Weskit had no 
intuitions to explain to him. He took 
Doddie on his shoulder and ran down to 
the scene of action. 

There were Tom and Susie hugging in 
one corner, Bert and his mother in another, 
Dick beaming radiantly at Polly, who looked 
on like a red-cheeked cherub in her “ or- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 73 


ganny ” ; and there was Uncle Royce, who 
had been mysteriously missing for some fif¬ 
teen or twenty minutes, and now came in 
shaking the snow off somebody else’s over¬ 
coat, having guilefully left his upstairs to 
make people think he was in the house some¬ 
where. 

“What’d I tell yer ! ” howled Jacky, danc¬ 
ing up and down in ecstasy. “ Did n’t I 
say something would happen to Polly’s party. 
Yer did n’t expect anybody home from col¬ 
lege, did yer ? Yer thought they could n’t 
get an ex-cuse. I writ to the president, and 
Uncle Royce, he put in a postscript.” 

Uncle Royce did not think it necessary to 
tell him that the said letter and postscript 
were not finally addressed to the college 
president. It was enough that the persua¬ 
sive eloquence of the one or the other had 
been sufficiently fetching to bring the boys 
home in time for Polly’s party. He could 
see that her cup of happiness was brimming 

over, and it was all he wanted. 

18 


274 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

“ Time for us to go in,” whispered Jacky, 
trying to pull the backs (I use the plural 
advisedly) of his right glove together. 
“ Get yours on and come up and be pre¬ 
sented.” 

Phil had been getting his on nervously for 
the last ten minutes, and now gave them a 
final tug and followed Jacky desperately. 
Jacky had once been to what he called a 
swell church sociable, where everybody was 
taken in on the arm of a good-looking usher 
and presented to the minister, who with his 
wife stood apart at the end of the room on 
a piece of .carpeting and received. He did 
n’t know what they received, but it must 
have been something pretty nice, for the 
minister smiled so sweetly to each one as he 
let go his hand. Polly would n’t expect 
much, he did n’t believe. Anyway, he could 
n’t spare but five cents, on account of being 
in debt to Uncle Royce on his last allowance, 
and having to save some for one or things 
that he wanted. Phil had only a two-cent 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 75 


piece, but then he was so much younger. 
There, they are going up—the gentlemen. 
Jacky took his turn, standing in the queue. 
There were n’t any ushers ; it was n’t a very 
swell reception. He held out those lanky 
gloves, first one and then the other, for, fear¬ 
ful to relate, the right one dropped off in the 
act of being extended, and hung to him only 
by the fingers. There was no use in trying 
to hold the split back together, so he simply 
said, “ Excuse my left hand,” and held that 
out, deftly slipping the five-cent piece into 
it and leaving it in Polly’s palm as a gratuity. 
Polly was as red as a peony with trying not 
to laugh, but there was more to follow, and 
people stopped tittering long enough to see 
what Phil had on his hands. 

He advanced with an ease and grace 
copied faithfully from Jacky, and, obedient 
to instructions, had one red-mittened hand 
in the breast of his jacket, the other grace¬ 
fully held behind him and tucked under the 
back of it. Angels could do no more, and 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


276 

he could not help a proud side glance at 
Jacky that was a bid for approval. The 
scowl he got so upset his nerves that his 
right hand came out with a jerk, his two- 
cent piece conspicuously reposing in the 
palm of that comical red mitten, and his 
“ Wishye many ’appy ’turnsof the day” was 
swallowed up at the last in something very 
like a sob as he turned away to join the 
gentlemen. He had disgraced the party. 

“Take oh them mittens,” whispered 
Jacky the tyrant. “ Do n’t you know they 
never wear red-yarn mittens to a party ? 
Polly ’ll think you want her to go snowball¬ 
ing.” 

“ Well, I do,” sobbed Phil. “ And I 
know by the looks of her she’d go in a 
minute. It ’s enough sight better than a 
old swell party, that I hope I never ’ll go to 
another.” 

The swell party broke up just then (by 
which term Jacky and Phil probably meant 
the standing-on-the-rug part, as they called 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 77 

it ; in other words the moments given to 
greetings and congratulations and good 
wishes), and Polly made her way unob¬ 
served to the corner where Phil sat curled 
up in a wilted condition that appealed to her 
kind heart. 

“ You ’re the cutest boy I ever saw in my 
life ! ” she cried admiringly, as she got near 
him. “ Whatever made you think of such 
a funny thing to do ? I sha’n’t get over 
laughing before my next birthday.” 

“ Do you really, truly mean that I have n’t 
spoiled your party ? ” he cried, taking heart 
from her look and tone, and feeling his little 
heart grow warm under the kind grip of 
her fingers. 

“ Spoiled it!” she cried honestly. “ It’s 
made more fun than all the rest of the party 
put together.” 

Phil revived instantly. He cast a wither¬ 
ing glance at Jacky and was about to say 
something, when a great “ Sh-h-h-hhh ! ” 
went round the room, and people looked to 


278 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

the corner near the door where Doddie 
stood perched on a table, with Weskit near 
her to steady her if there was any danger of 
her falling. Her little skirts stood out like 
a balloon ; her short hair, which had been 
lately cut, made her look like a boy with a 
girl’s dress on ; her soft, round dimpled 
cheeks had just a tinge of pink like the lip 
of a seashell ; and her big, swimming blue 
eyes had an expression of holy horror. She 
began :— 

“ S’ades ©f Hugh Peters and John 
Cotton ! ” 

“ Not yet! not yet ! ” whispered Weskit. 
“ ‘A comparison’”— 

“ ‘ A compawison has been drawn be¬ 
tween the events of the Wevoluson and the 
twagedy at Altum. We have heard it as¬ 
serted here, in Faneuil Hall, that Gweat 
Bwittun had a wight to tax der Colonies; 
and we have heard de mob at Altum, the 
dwunken murdewers of Lovejoy, compared 
to dose patwit fazzers ’at foo der tea over- 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 7 9 

board. Fellow-citiwuns, is ziz Faneuil Hall 
doctorin ? ” 

Loud applause shook the centre table as 
she stopped for breath, and she went on 
about “ Otis and Hancock and Quincy and 
Adams,” rolling her solemn eyes from side 
to side till she came to the place where she 
“ fought those pickshured lips would have 
bwoken into voice to webiike the weck- 
onant American, the-slanderer-of-the-dead.” 
The deep tone and condemnatory emphasis 
of these closing words were too much for 
the good manners of her audience, and she 
abruptly left the table, with a not much 
better opinion of them than she had had of 
Weskit. No inducements could bring her 
back, and she and Weskit promptly retired 
to private life, or in plain language to the 
place where the freezer was. There they 
were shortly discovered, it being now time 
for refreshments, and Bert and Tom railed 
at him unmercifully for being caught with 
two spoons and a half-empty cake tin. 


280 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


“ Shades of Hugh Peters and John Cot¬ 
ton ! ” began Dick when he came up, but 
Weskit’s groan and apparently devout wish 
that “ the earth had yawned and swallowed 
him up” before he ever let Doddie get him 
into such a ridiculous predicament led him 
finally to explain matters, and he was let off 
for that time with a minimum of chaffing. 


CHAPTER XXI 


ON THE KELLOGG 

“ His joy is not that he has won the crown. 

But that the power to win the crown is his.” 

J S that all you got to do, Bert ? ” asked 
Phil in deep disgust, getting up from the 
floor where he had been sitting down like a 
turbaned Turk, in his brown leather leggings 
to read over Bert’s “ Prize ’Ration.” It was 
n’t an oration at all, but Phil persisted in 
calling it so, and the “ Prize ” one at that, so 
we will not try to change his nomenclature. 

It was time for the “Kellogg” at last, and 
the visiting trunk was having its first chance 
to go anywhere. This contest came at the 
end of the Freshman year, and though in the 
uncertain lottery of awards in such matters, 
Bert could not reasonably do more than “ in¬ 
dulge a hope,” he meant to try his best, and all 
281 


282 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


the family had announced their determination 
of coming to see him do it. Polly was going 
to be on hand, of course, and Jacky would 
have told anybody that hanging was too 
good for him who should have suggested that 
he be absent from the scene of triumph. 

The telegraph system has no sense of the 
fitness of things, and it was quite in the natural 
order of events that the day before the speak¬ 
ing, after his room was all engaged, and 
Jacky’s hand-bag was all packed and strapped 
and ready to swing over his shoulder (for 
he had a forecasting mind, like Phil’s, and 
could never be dubbed “Jacky the Un¬ 
ready ” ), at this most inauspicious moment 
old Mr. Royce was whisked away by tele¬ 
gram, and Jacky went with him. Bert felt 
sorrier than he could well tell anybody, for 
he wanted his good friend to enjoy any 
honors he might get him, and as for Jacky 
he felt, as most people usually did, that he 
could have better spared a better boy. 

But at last the day had come, and he was 


A BUNKER JIILL FAILURE 283 

fairly “on ”—first on the “ Fifteen,” then on 
the “ Five,” and soon to decide whether he 
was to be on the stage as sole and single vic¬ 
tor. It was a great day for Bert, and those 
who loved him. 

“ What did I bring such an old Noah’s 
Ark for?” repeated Phil indignantly, when 
Bert and Tom tumbled over the visiting 
trunk which the expressman had thought¬ 
fully deposited in the middle of the floor. 
That was last night, and there it still stood, 
as large as life, and a great deal too large for 
much life, for it was too big to go into the 
cubby-hole, and had to stand in the middle 
of Bert’s room or Tom’s room, whichever 
•you call it, in the handiest place to hit their 
shins on, no matter which way you navigated 
to get around it. “ Why, bercause—I 
needed to ! You can’t stay a week to col¬ 
lege without a collar, can you ? I guess a 
fellow wants a change ! And I had to have 
my—my Bible ; and a few little things. I 
ain’t a heathen ! ” 


284 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

“ Now you Ve got it ! ” laughed Tom. 
“You don’t get any sympathy from me, old 
fellow! I told you when you was writing 
that letter that you’d better not ask your 
mother to give him carte blanche about 
packing. It might be fun to see what he 
would bring, but it would be mighty incon¬ 
venient.” 

“ I see you have n’t been brought up by 
several small brothers! ” said Dick dryly, 
wandering in for a minute to talk about 
places and order on the program. “ I could 
give you points.” 

“ What did you bring—besides your Bible ? 
asked Bert, turning round from the glass 
where he was struggling with an intractable 
necktie. 

“A-a-well, I think I put in that kite you 
made me last year, for one thing. It’s torn 
some, but you can mend it. That took up 
quite a good deal of room, because it had to 
be stood up on the side, and sort o’ bent 
over, and the place all around it sort o’ 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 285 

stuffed in with pillows. I heard Aunt Eas¬ 
ter scolding 'bout where those pillows had 
gone to when she took hold and made the 
beds up for mother, so she could get ready ; 
but mother was thinking 'bout new strings 
to her bonnet, and was n’t minding. And 
there's a go bang board. I thought it might 
rest you after the Kellogg. I forgot 1 Old 
Maid ' and ‘ Parchesi.’ ” 

“ Got any clothes—stockings or shirts ?” 
asked Bert when the laughing had subsided. 

“ No-o ! ” said Phil in a surprised tone. 
“ But you can buy those anywhere. Here's 
a kaleidoscope and my jackstraws. Would 
you like to have a game after dinner ? ” 
“What's all this truck ? ” cried Bert, fish¬ 
ing out a tattered copy of Barnes' United 
States History with Notes, a “ Six Weeks in 
Caesar,” and one or two other books. 

“ Don’t, Bert, please !” begged Phil, res¬ 
cuing them reproachfully. ‘ ‘ I could n’t 
bear to go away and leave those. I have 
’sociations with 'em.” 


286 


A BUNKER UILL FAILURE 


“ Oh, my unlucky stars ! ” groaned Dick. 
“ Do n’t you think that this young man had 
better be allowed to get his hat and other 
legging off, and be made a little more com¬ 
fortable for dinner? Or perhaps he stays 
with your folks—your father and mother— 
at the hotel ? ” 

“ No, he do n’t ! ” said Phil, answering 
for himself in a positive tone that quenched 
argument. “ I came to see Bert get the 
Kellogg ; and say, Bert, I did n’t s’pose it 
was just saying a piece wrote by another 
man ! There is n’t any more to it than there 
was to the Dexter ! ” 

“ It’s to be hoped there’s more to me ! ” 
returned Bert, laying violent hands on him 
and carrying him off to the dressing-room, 
as they usually called Phil’s cubby-hole. 

Tom was not friendless, either. Susie 
was up to see him, gorgeous in a pink silk 
waist (according to Tom), and a moreen 
skirt, he believed it was, and some kind of a 
lace rig that was nice and fluffy. He liked 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 287 

to see Susie look nice. The younger child¬ 
ren were left at home, but Tom’s father was 
there, quietly observant of many things, 
proudly noticing Tom’s improved demeanor 
gratefully recognizing Bert’s hand in more 
items of it than Bert himself well realized. 
They say two roses, one heavily perfumed, 
the other scentless, carried side by side, will 
soon come to have the same sweet odor. It 
is often a good deal so with character. We 
owe more than we know to good companion¬ 
ship. 

“ My little brother, Mrs. Wellman ! ” 

Bert was introducing him to the presi¬ 
dent’s mother. She happened to sit beside 
him in the front row, and Phil found the 
place on the program, and picked out the 
pinkest pink from his buttonhole to give her. 
A sweet smile had made her sweet old face 
still sweeter, and she had asked the name of 
her little cavalier. Bert, sitting just beyond, 
leaned over to give the information. 

“ Yes, and this is my brother ! ” said Phil 


288 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


proudly, returning the patronage. “ He's 
the Kellogg man ”— 

“ Phil ! ” cried Bert hastily, blushing to 
the tips of his ears, for Phil’s tone was loud 
enough to reach the platform. 

—“ and we’ve come to see him take the 
prize—my mother and father and me—and 
the flowers, you know, and hear ’em clap 
when they do it ! ” finished Phil, looking up 
in surprise at Bert’s sharp exclamation. 

“ Oh, yes, he ’ll get it ! He failed once, 
but he won’t this time, because he’s a better 
boy. My father says so. Oh, there’s my 
mother ! I think you will have to excuse 
me now, if you please ! ” with a courtly 
little bow. “ Perhaps I can come back 
again. I think I will go and sit by my 
mother, so as to have somebody that you 
could squeeze their elbow, you know, when 
he gets to going it. Oh ! it’s glorious ! 
You ’ll like to hear him. I forget what they 
call the piece, but you ’ll know. It’s the 
prize one. My mother ? Over there on 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 289 

the side in the front seat where the rest of 
the mothers are, the one that looks sort 
of proud and expecting things—though I 
do n’t know but they all of ’em do that ! ” he 
added, scanning the faces thoughtfully. “ I 
guess it’s a kind of mother-y look, do n’t 
you?” he asked curiously. “ Oh, please— 
I hope I have n’t said anything to hurt your 
feelings ! ” as the lady suddenly put her fan 
up to hide some springing tears at that 
“ mother-y ” allusion, coming as it did when 
she was trying so hard not to laugh at his 
charmingly naive confidence in Bert’s pros¬ 
pects. Humor is only pathos wrong side 
out, and a breath will blow the fabric either 
way. She had known what it was to feel 
“mother-y” in her own right before now, 
w r hen boys were on the stage, and the recol¬ 
lection was a tender one. 

“ I suppose, though,” said Phil, watching 
her, “ you ’re feeling sorry for all those other 
mothers—because—you see, there ’s only 

one prize.” 

*9 


290 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


Phil could not get to his mother, and 
dropped down at last beside another lady. 
He was fond of the society of ladies, and 
always found them entertaining. 

“ Oh, I do love music ! ” he said with a 
soulful expression, as the violins began scrap¬ 
ing. “ It must be beautiful to belong to a 
college and do such things. Is that the 
president — that one with the big drum? 
And do all the professors do it ? ” 

By and by the music stopped, and a quiet¬ 
looking gentleman—one of the ushers, Phil 
thought—came out in the centre of the plat¬ 
form and said something that began with 
“ Ladies and gentlemen,” which Phil did 
not hear another word of, he was so busy 
craning his small neck to try and see Bert 
anywhere. 

That was not possible just then, for in the 
present excited state of his brother’s feelings, 
Bert felt that modesty forbade his sitting 
anywhere in his neighborhood, and he was 
glad to watch and note where he finally 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


291 


seated himself, and put a convenient pillar 
between them. 

At last the quiet-looking usher sat down, 
and one speaker after another came on the 
stage, all of whom Phil clapped politely as 
they went off, and felt sorry for their 
mothers. Bert did not come on among the 
first ones. When he did, everybody in 
Phil’s vicinity knew of it. 

The little fellow was pale to the lips, and 
his eyes glowed like coals in their deep sock¬ 
ets. His humpy back hair stood out elec¬ 
trically, and his brave little shiny shirt collar 
was wilted, as if he had just come in from 
a game of tennis. As Bert swept on quite 
grandly in his piece, the red crept up into 
the little face again, and the “coals” fairly 
blazed, but no sound escaped him. He nei¬ 
ther spoke nor moved till the whole per¬ 
formance was over. Then he slowly undid 
his clinched fists, looked around proudly 
over the appreciative audience, while his ears 
drank in their clapping, and in a clear and 


292 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

distinct tone of voice ejaculated, “ There, 
sir ! ” 

There was another round of applause in¬ 
stantly, in which Phil joined in the most 
gratified manner. It was only his brother’s 
due, and he was glad of it. Then he left 
his seat and found his mother, and was very 
much disappointed to be reminded that 
there were yet other speakers, and the prize 
was not decided yet. In his excitement he 
had forgotten that, and even in his cool mind 
he could not see the sense of it. Still, for 
form’s sake, it was perhaps as well to hear 
them all. Of course it made no difference. 

“ Oh, no, I do n’t mind! ” he said a little 
wearily, in answer to her whispered inquiry 
if he would like to go out a little while. 
“ They ’re all splendid speakers, I ’m sure, 
except that they ’re a—little—tedious ! ” 

He listened languidly to the excited hum 
of voices that ensued at the end of the 
speaking, flashing proud glances at any one 
who made flattering mention of his brother. 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 93 

All at once a loud burst of drums and trom¬ 
bones brought everybody to order, and then 
there was sweet, low violin music that made 
him want to cry, and that swelled into a 
triumphant chorus of all the instruments, 
ending in something like a herald shout, as 
if they “ hailed a conquering hero.” At 
least that was Phil’s translation, sitting there 
holding his mother’s hand tight enough to 
hurt it. 

“ The prize is therefore awarded to Ber¬ 
tram Wayland Whitcomb ! ” 

There was more to it, but Phil did not 
care about the “ therefore.” As soon as he 
could, he made his way to Bert, who was 
seen striding over settee backs to his 
mother. Father sat by, glad and quiet, and 
patted Bert’s hand once as it lay on the 
back of the seat, behind his mother. Phil 
pulled one of Bert’s arms around him, and 
snuggled up close, laying his head on the 
college colors, which all the speakers wore 
that day as a decoration. 


294 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


People smiled at the sight as they came 
up to offer congratulations. A lady with 
the pinkest of pinks came to shake hands 
with Bert’s mother. She whispered some¬ 
thing in her ear that made the two ladies 
laugh and wipe their eyes together. All 
Phil could catch was a word that sounded 
like “ mother-y.” Just then a tall gentle¬ 
man stepped up beside her, whom she intro¬ 
duced as “My son, President Wellman ! ” 

“ You the president! ” cried Phil, sitting 
up to look at him from the crown of his 
head to his shoes and back again. “ I 
thought you was an usher. Then who was 
the man that did the drumming ? ” 

“ It was not perhaps to be regretted, from 
some points of view, that Phil’s week at 
college was to be something less than seven 
days. The shock might otherwise have 
proved too much for Bert’s nervous system. 
Whoever came to wring Bert’s hand, Phil 
was at the fore, and his remarks threw side 
lights on his brother’s previous character 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 


2 95 

and condition that Bert could have unre- 
gretfully dispensed with. . 

“You said you’d do it ! ” cried Tom 
Pickles warmly, running round to shake 
hands. 

“ So did you,” said Bert in a low voice, 
and Tom’s pleased flush showed that he 
took the significance Bert intended. 
“ There’s more than my father glad here 
to-day, Tom.” 

“I am ! ” said Philip Sharp-ear. “ I 
do n’t b’lieve I could ’a’ stood it to had 
Bert fail again.” 

Angels are apt to be dressed in white, and 
Susie was all in pink, like a blush rose, so 
it won’t do to call her an angel, but Bert 
did, extravagantly. A year’s time had not 
changed his mind about doing what he 
could to please that pretty little Susie 
Pickles. 

Polly was hovering around, waiting her 
chance to say “ Good boy!” and so forth. 

“ Brother, I wish you well ! ” she called 


296 A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 

out across Aunt Marian’s shoulder, reach¬ 
ing a plump, little, neat-gloved hand, of 
which Bert was able to secure one tanta¬ 
lizing finger. “You’re welcome to all the 
good advice I ever gave you.” 

“ Was it good ? Did I do well ? Are 
you satisfied ? ” Bert’s face asked her in the 
instant’s turning towards her. 

“We’re all glad,” she said, answering 
the curious fleeting expression. “ It was 
simply splendid, Bert. Go on to glory ! ” 
“O Bert! you have forgottened the one 
that will want to know it the worst of all ! ” 
cried Phil excitedly, breaking into the low¬ 
voiced snatch of conversation, which for an 
instant had eluded even his penetration, 
though he heard the words well enough. 

“ That dear old Mr. Royce”- 

“And Jacky,” finished Bert. “No, I 
have n’t. I ’m going to telegraph to him as 
as soon I can get out of here.” 

“ O Bert ! When you know how I want 
to do the telling ! ” 


A BUNKER HILL FAILURE 297 

“ Well, you might, if you could ever men¬ 
tion anything indirectly, and not act as if our 
folks were the only ones in the universe.” 

“ O Bert, I will! I ’ll just go right up 
indirectly and say, ‘ O Mr. Royce’ you can’t 
imagine! Bert’s got it—got it! We ’re 
on the Kellogg—Bert and me!’" 


























































































































































































































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